Endgame
by The Shadow Incarnate
Summary: "I have seen a small part of the road ahead. I saw fear, and sorrow, and evil darker than the uttermost depths of the sea. Yet there is light, and hope, and love that endures beyond death and time. Hold to that when all else is gone." Post-FOTJ, Abeloth is returning and the Sith are resurgent. This is not the end of an age. This is the end of days.
1. Prologue

A/N-I've never been wholly satisfied with some of the events in the EU canon. I thought this would be a good way for me to fix it. On to the story, and remember to review afterward.

* * *

**Prologue**

Anakin Solo is dead. He knows this. When matched against the span of his life, he has been dead for a long time. About as long as he'd been alive, in fact. He has spent long years in the Lake of Apparitions, learning...ever learning.

_ What have you learned, Anakin Solo?_

He has learned that he was a fool in life. He has learned much of the Force, and much not of the Force. He has learned to be nothing, and everything. They are, after all, the same thing. All things are one, in the Force.

_ Why have you learned these things, Anakin Solo?_

How should he know? Death opens new vistas of reality; it does not lay bare all the secrets of existence.

_ You misunderstand, Anakin Solo. What is your purpose now?_

Death is its own purpose. His time has passed. He wants only to be. Is that not enough? Has he not earned this rest? Let him remain one with the Force. The Force is sufficient.

_ For the dead. What of the living?_

Now, Anakin is rising. The uncountable dead turn to watch, an endless tide moving as one. They pull at him, but Anakin has passed beyond the power of death. Out of the Lake of Apparitions he soars, his spirit quaking at the dark power that interpenetrates the very fabric of that world. A shadow manifests from the midst of that power, tendrils sprouting from it, reaching out serpent-quick to snatch him from whatever power now holds him. Anakin raises his hands to defend himself as he reaches for the Force. Its power seeps into him, a trickle that becomes a flood. He casts it forth, a torrent of power to banish the shadow.

The shadow laughs at Anakin. He can hear it, a grinding as of metal on metal. It opens itself to the dark power of the world, and it weathers the assault as the light tears at it.

Anakin's power can only last so long. The light sputters and dies. The shadow waits for him, letting him feel its savor. The tendrils reach for him again, slowly unfolding to grasp and pull him, ever so subtly, into itself.

Light flashes below. A white sphere, glowing with the strength of the light side, interposes itself between Anakin and the shadow. The dark tendrils shrink back for a bare moment, but then they quest outward again, playing against the light of the sphere as though seeking a weak point in a deflector shield. All the while, Anakin continues to rise. The fog that has overtaken his mind begins to lift, and he notices that the glowing orb rises with him, as does the shadow.

A mind touches his. He braces himself, readying his will to cast it against the shadow. But it does not come. Instead, a voice soft as a whisper distantly heard speaks to him. _Help_, it says. In the voice is a quiet tone of desperation. Once more, Anakin calls to the light as he opens his heart to the voice that calls to him...and finds that he knows it. He has touched this mind before, heard this voice...where? In life?

No time to think of such things. The light burns him now, its strength too much for his spirit to hold. Anakin does not care. He does not know whose the voice is, but he knows that it is trying to defend him. He pours his power into the glowing sphere. It darts toward the shadow. The shadow recoils, calling back its tendrils to swat at the stinging glob of light. it begins to fall behind as the power pulling Anakin tugs harder. In moments, he passes beyond the atmosphere of the dark world, past the enveloping cloud of dark side power. The universe vanishes in white as the power rips him through space, past black holes and stars into an infinite void.

* * *

"She almost had him."

"Yes. Thank you for protecting him."

"It was the reason I was born."

"Nonetheless, I would have failed if not for you."

"That world... How could they have left her alive?"

"The Skywalkers? Or the first ones?

"The first ones. To leave such a creature alive..."

"Perhaps even they could not kill her."

"If they could not, how can you?"

"I must try. If I do not, we are all lost."

* * *

Anakin woke amidst the Force. Its current wove through him, a tapestry of life with a weave finer than atoms. To pick at a thread would rustle the leaves of a tree, or set an insect to buzzing. The Force was life; to wield it was to change life. Only the dead did not change.

"Are you so sure, Anakin Solo?"

He opened his eyes. Above him, violet and turquoise dotted a viridian canopy. The tips of tree limbs gleamed as with metal. The Force flowed through this place, stronger than Anakin had ever felt it. He'd been where the Force gathered like water in a well, there to tap and increase his own powers. Here, though...this was a place where the Force was born, a place so full of life that the Force wafted up from it like scent from a flower. He looked over where the voice had come from, and he beheld Power.

For a moment, Anakin's Force senses overrode what his eyes told him. This thing, a being of light so pure and strong that it would have burned him to ash had he looked at it with the naked eye, existed in the Force, its power spreading over the world and around him, a gentle hand that could caress or crush as it wished. Fear rose up then, terror so profound it set his teeth to shivering and his skin to quaking. He trembled before this...this...

"God?" said the Power; its voice held a faint trace of mockery.

The Power reached out to touch him, and Anakin thought to strike out against it, but he cast aside the idea; only a fool would try to fight _that_.

"You are not ready, little spirit. Close the eyes the Force has given you, and look upon me with your first sight."

The hand of the Power reached out and clamped onto Anakin's Force senses. The vision of unmatched Force strength vanished, and in its place stood a boy, younger than he, perhaps eleven or twelve. He had yellow hair, bordering on gold, and his eyes were blue as the sea, but, when Anakin looked into them, he felt a sense of age, of sadness beyond anything a child could know, no matter his experiences in life. Save for the look in his eyes, the boy looked somewhat like Anakin had at that age.

"Who are you?" said Anakin.

"Have you not guessed, Anakin Solo?" The boy's voice was in that stage between childhood and manhood, timbre and pitch changing with every word. "Your family knows me, and I know them. Better than they might guess, as well." The boy walked to a flower, a mottled red and purple thing whose petals gathered close about themselves, and he laid his hand on it. The petals opened, revealing a bulb in the center. "It holds a nectar sweet as any sugar," said the boy. "The children who live here make dares regarding how many they can eat. You see, Anakin," said the boy, turning to face him now, "in larger quantities, the nectar acts as a hallucinogen. A rather addictive one, too. It is one of the qualities that allows it to spread itself over this world. A beautiful thing to see and smell and taste, but a danger nevertheless."

Anakin remained silent. He knew when he was being taught, or tested.

"Are they not the same thing? If so, or if not, how could you tell?" The boy was smiling at Anakin. It was the kind of smile Anakin hated, the one that said that the speaker thought he knew more than Anakin.

The smile faded. "I...," he sighed, "I am sorry. I do know more than you, but that is a function of my being more than an effort to learn."

"What are you talking about?" said Anakin.

The boy's smile returned, more wistful now. "You've seen me with the eyes of the Force. Do you think the same strictures bind my knowledge as bind yours?"

"Am I allowed to ask questions, too? It's only fair."

The boy chuckled. "As you wish. Three questions, three answers."

"Okay," said Anakin. "Who are you, where am I, and why am I here?"

"You're very predictable, you know."

"It hasn't been a good day."

"I suppose not." The boy sighed again. "The answers to the first and second question are the same."

Anakin knew the answer then. So simple, really. "Zonama Sekot," he said.

The boy bowed his head. "Correct."

"I don't get why, though."

"That," said Sekot, "is a more difficult question altogether."


	2. Chapter 1

Behold Coruscant, the center of the galaxy: a city-planet, an ecumenopolis without peer in the galaxy. To the eye, its lights form patterns on the face of the planet that, to a certain type of mind, the world itself could be considered a work of art. In the Force, the world of itself is a dead thing made all of unliving durasteel girders and transparisteel windows. But upon the world...oh, it is alive as no other world could be. A trillion sapient beings for certain, and who knows how many live in its downlevels? Coruscant is a confluence, a place where the fate of the galaxy can turn on an instant. It is not the only such place; many villages on many worlds may change the course of the future, but here, the political heart of the galaxy and the home of its mightiest Force-wielders, the Jedi, history is made.

Some confluences of the Force center on a person, not a place. Several of these confluences live on Coruscant. One of them is Luke Skywalker.

His quarters in the Temple held few of his personal possessions: a few changes of clothes, his lightsaber and shoto, grooming items; little else. He slept well, but it was not natural. Before he fell asleep, he had meditated, using the Force to calm himself, readying his body for sleep. Now, Luke Skywalker dreamed. He saw Coruscant the ever-bright with the eyes of the Force, a trillion far away stars gleaming the little gleams of little lives. His own life shone among them, infinitesimally brighter for his wielding of the Force. Behind the lights waited the darkness, as it always waited. Darkness abode in every heart, in every soul. But there, on Coruscant, even deeper darkness shifted and roiled beneath the light. Shadows within shadows struck at the lights, snuffing them out, even the lights that wielded the Force. Those lights fought back, often in concert, often killing the shadows, but they just kept coming, and would keep coming.

Forever.

Luke sat up in bed, breathing only a little harder than normal. It was an atavistic reaction; animals feared the dark. Luke closed his eyes, used a Jedi calming technique. The animal in Luke quieted, and the human took the fore. That was what it meant to be human, to be sapient: hearing the desires of the animal, but passing them by for more lasting results.

He could not say with certainty that the dream came from the Force. And really, it didn't matter; the galaxy still grew darker, even after Abeloth's defeat. Sith still roamed Coruscant's underlevels, killing at will, sabotaging power installations, waste management facilities... Some had even tried to destroy Coruscant's air purification systems; they had tried to choke the planet with its own exhalations. That was why the Chief of State had asked for a contingent of Jedi to remain on Coruscant to fight the Sith. They outnumbered the Jedi; they struck from shadows that Luke's Force perceptions could not sense, not from a distance. Ultimately, it was a matter of having only fifty Jedi to cover the most expansive and populated planet in the galaxy.

Luke rubbed his eyes. He'd only recently resorted to meditation to help him sleep. This was the first night, in fact. He hadn't slept well the previous few. He got out of bed and walked to the window. Coruscant's skylanes never slept; almost as many of Coruscant's inhabitants were nocturnal as were diurnal. He stretched out his Force senses, detected nothing out of the ordinary...but he wouldn't, not if the Sith were hiding. He sighed and shook his head. He could go back to sleep, and he would. But, for an instant, he had focused on his reflection in the transparisteel. He'd seen his own face.

A few extra wrinkles had crept into his crow's feet, and the bags under his eyes still bulged, an indication of his insufficient sleep. His lips had thinned, and he had a few more strands of grey in his hair. Some of it had been a result of his fight with Abeloth beyond shadows, only now beginning to fade. But Luke wasn't the man he had been at twenty-five. Yes, he was wiser, stronger, more skilled and knowledgeable in the ways of the Force, but time had stripped away the fire of his youth. Only a banked flame burned in him now, steady and sure, not prone to the flares so common in youth. Even so, it burned at a low ebb. It needed fuel.

He could feed it. Anger, hatred, lust, and indignation could ignite a conflagration that would consume the entire galaxy, making him a monster the equal of Abeloth. Who could stop him? Luke had defeated countless enemies, had become the most powerful Jedi who had ever lived. With the dark side at his command and an army of Sith to follow him, he could rule the galaxy in a way his father could only have dreamed of doing. None of the Jedi could stop him. None of them was his equal in the Force or with a blade. Even Caedus, whose raw power came closest to matching Luke's own, had not been his equal. What a champion for the dark Luke could become!

This was the fear that lay deepest in Luke Skywalker's heart. Someday, something might happen to drive him to the dark. He did not know what it might be. It would not be the mistake his father made, loving someone so dearly that he could not see how a Sith Lord was manipulating him. But if something happened to Ben, and only the dark side offered a way to save him...he might take it. It was always a possibility. Or what if, in the course of time, he came to a choice? What if two paths lay before him? Down one lay his own turning to the dark side. Down the other, some future even more terrible. What would he choose? He knew, of course, but he could never account for those moments of weakness that all sapient beings had, those moments when reason departed and only emotion remained. This was the fear that haunted Luke Skywalker's nightmares.

As his son had said yesterday, "You need to lighten up a bit, Dad."

So Luke had.

He'd downloaded a story from the archive of one of the currently-prominent satirists, one that Ben, ever more in tune with popular culture than his father, had suggested. To his surprise, he'd found the writings genuinely funny. He hadn't laughed so much in...how long had it been? Before Abeloth? Before Caedus, or the Yuuzhan Vong?

Before his Uncle Owen bought a banged-up protocol droid and a blue and white astromech?

He sat in a cushion chair, one of the few luxuries he allowed himself in the Temple. It swallowed him up and supported his spine as he relaxed into it, holding his datapad at a convenient height for reading. Its screen sent an arc of blue onto the dark ceiling, reflecting off the light settings. Luke settled in to read.

The Force struck at him, hurling him from his physical body. He blew past spacescrapers and innumerable speeders, through the air and into space. He hovered over Coruscant as the lights of the planet-city winked out, and when he turned to look out upon the rest of the galaxy, the stars were going out, one by one, until only two remained, supernova-bright, two points of light hanging in the void.

He'd seen this before, when he'd looked into the eyes of darkness incarnate, of power unbound by restraint or any form of morality. Abeloth's eyes became the focus of the universe, and all that power, all that infinite hatred turned upon Luke. The Force was with him; he felt it at his side, in his heart and mind, behind him and before him. Against him stood all the power of darkness the galaxy had ever seen, manifest in one being.

In that moment, Luke knew two things. He knew he would die, and he knew that he would die fighting.

But the eyes of Abeloth vanished. Dark Coruscant faded to nothing, and Luke was alone. But far in the distance, something approached. At first, he thought it a ship of some kind, but as it drew nearer, he discerned feathers. A creature, then. Closer...closer...

Luke knew this being. An avian creature, feathered and beaked with back-jointed legs, this creature had broken his nephew with pain and set him onto the left-hand path. But this was not the Vergere that Luke had met after the fall of Coruscant. This creature was younger, brighter-eyed. Luke had only seen this Vergere in one place.

"Sekot?" he said, his voice tremulous with fear and awe and all respect.

"Indeed," said Vergere, inclining her head. "Well met, young Skywalker."

Luke looked about the void. "This isn't real, I suppose."  
"No. It is my will that you be here, that you see the things you see."

"Then the vision wasn't from the Force." He made it a statement, not a question.

Vergere laughed at him. "All visions come from the Force. If the Force is all, how can something not be of the Force?"

"Point. Why, though, and how?"

"Jedi can communicate over interstellar distances using the Force. What I do is simply a more focused and powerful application of the Force."

Yes. With the power of an entire world to draw upon, Luke might have been able to do the same. He nodded. "I take it you know of Abeloth."

Vergere's smile faded. "Indeed. Such darkness...I had never envisioned such evil existing before."

"We defeated her."

Vergere's eyes snapped onto his, radiating power. "You did not kill her."

"We're searching for the dagger-"

"I know what you are searching for. Do you think it will help you once Abeloth is reborn and spreading her power in secret?"

One of Luke's lesser nightmares reared its head, looking for some part of his heart to nibble on. "How do you know?" he said.

"How could I not? The Force itself trembled at her darkness. It is out there, even now, growing stronger. And you remain on Coruscant, hunting Sith."

"What do you want me to-"  
"Come to me, Luke Skywalker. Come to Zonama. There, we will strategize, and plan the annihilation of the creature Abeloth."

And Luke sat once more in the cushioned chair.

He stared, not seeing the datapad in his hands. Outside his door, he heard footsteps running through the corridor. Luke reached out a hand to pull his lightsaber to him with the Force, and felt his son just outside. He let his hand fall. _I would have used it on Ben_, he thought. Only that instant when he turned to the Force had saved his son.

The door slid open silently. Ben was as tall as his father was, a...a man, yes. He deserved the appellation. At seventeen, he had seen enough, done enough, to earn it.

He had, after all, tasted love, and lost it.

"Dad? You all right?" He entered, but stopped just past the door when he saw the look on Luke's face. "I...I sensed something in the Force."

"Yes," said Luke. "A vision, or a sending; I'm not sure which you would call it."

Ben went to the bed and sat on the end of it. "What happened?"

Luke shook his head. "I saw Coruscant fall dark. The stars went out, and I saw her eyes. Abeloth's eyes." He swallowed. "And then...Sekot came to me, spoke to me."

"Sekot?" said Ben, incredulity in his voice. "Um, that bodes, doesn't it? I mean, sentient planets don't just call to chat you up, right?"

Luke smiled. "Not often, no."

"So...what did Sekot want?"

"I think it has a plan. For Abeloth." Luke looked down at the floor. "It said Abeloth's power is growing. That we won't find the dagger before she returns."

"It said that?"

"Implied it, mostly. It wants us to come to Zonama. Sekot...I think it has a plan to kill Abeloth."

"It would be strong enough."

Luke shook his head. "I don't think Abeloth is stupid enough to fight against an entire world. Especially not one inhabited by the Vong."

"That would have been a sight to see: Vong versus Abeloth. We could sell tickets."

Luke smiled. "Somehow, I don't think they would let us stage it in some arena."

Ben lost the grin on his face. "When are you leaving?"

"In the morning," said Luke. "We'll leave as soon as we can get ready."

"We?" Ben raised an eyebrow. "What if I don't want to go?"

Luke gave his son a look. He said nothing, merely staring at his son, letting the silence deepen between them. Ben rolled his eyes. "Fine. I'll go."

"In my day," said Luke, "they beat us if we disrespected our elders."

"That was right around when the hyperdrive was invented, right?"

Now Luke rolled his own eyes. "Go back to bed."

Ben clasped his hands before him and bowed to Luke. "Yes, my Master."

Luke considered throwing the datapad at Ben. Ben apparently sensed this, because he got up and left the room posthaste. Luke stood, stretching, and laid down to try and get more sleep.

* * *

Tahiri still dreamed of him sometimes. Not so much as before, but the dreams still came, some of him in life, when he was strong and beautiful, and when she woke from those, she wept, for his life should have been full and long, filled with happiness and all manner of joy. Other dreams came, of the time on the worldship, when enemies closed around them, struck at him, and slew him. She wept when she woke from those, but she did not weep for him alone. Some of her tears fell for herself, for the opportunity she had lost, both to save him and to love him.

The worst dreams came when the darkness of her past rose up and carried her into nightmares. In those, she stood before an old admiral and shot him with a blaster. In those, she tried to seduce a boy for information. In those, she turned to the dark and betrayed all that he had stood for.

She betrayed _him_.

Not for herself or for him did she weep when she woke from those dreams. Tahiri wept for others. The dark she had called upon...she could not contain it. It had slept within her, waiting to strike out through her. This, she knew now, was the weakness of the Sith, of the dark side itself: the dark was not evil, and to be dark was not to be evil. But the dark fed on the light that once dwelt within its host, and once it consumed all its host can offer, it must feed on those without. For all its power and might, it is only a parasite, and only purest light can hold the darkness within itself. And darkness exists in all hearts.

Tahiri dreamed sometimes of the dark, but not tonight. Tonight, she dreamt of Hapes. She stood before a pyre of wood, hewn from trees for this purpose. In the night, the stars gleamed overhead. People stood around her, indistinct in the dream; only one face stood out. His face. Anakin's face.

Gone was the blood and grime that had covered his face; it was pure, untouched by the weariness of war. He was at peace. And he was gone. She knew it through the Force. The vitality, the _life _that had made him her Anakin...it was all gone. His body would soon follow, for the torch was laid against the wood. The wood caught, and flame crawled around the bier and snaked its way over his flesh, and it consumed Anakin. But in the silence of the night, she saw his spirit rise from the body, saw the currents of the Force lift him up on wings of light. Anakin soared to the sky, and there he stayed, his brow star-crowned. Down he looked to Tahiri, and he said, "It is time. Come."

Tahiri woke panting. The Force had spoken to her. But...time for what? Come where?

The dawn was coming through the windows in her quarters. She had chosen these rooms specifically because they let in natural light. The other quarters, deep in the Temple, faked it, projecting an image of the outside into those rooms. Tahiri knew the difference, though. Everyone else was skeptical, but she continued to maintain it. She turned her head when she heard the sound of feet running past her room. Tthe footfalls had the sound of boots, and they were heavy.

Tahiri threw on the robe she'd worn yesterday and went to the door. The footsteps had already gone by, but she saw Jaden Korr about to turn the corner. Tahiri yelled his name. He stopped. "What's going on?" she said.

"Master Skywalker's leaving."

"What? Why wasn't I notified?"

Jaden furrowed his brows. "Everyone was. By comlink."

Tahiri looked over to where her comlink lay beside her bed. She'd silenced it the night before. It was blinking. "Um," she said. "Didn't get it."

Jaden rolled his eyes, but he smiled. "He's in the hangar. _Jade_ _Shadow_'s about to leave."

Tahiri used the Force to pull her lightsaber to her herself, and then she flung herself down the corridor, bypassing a surprised Jaden. The Force whispered in her ear, saying she should go with the Skywalkers. "Come on," she yelled at Jaden. The Force whispered, _Faster_, and she drew on it to speed her feet, and she flew down the corridor; why, she did not know.

* * *

A Jedi cannot easily hide in the dark. It is not in their nature to skulk. They are the shining beacons of hope for the galaxy; theirs is a path that forever leads them _out_ of darkness. Though they may cloak themselves in it for a time, it is always a means to an end.

The Sith are good at hiding, most especially in the dark. Darkness is the natural state of the universe; light is only a fortunate byproduct of the laws of physics. Palpatine was the greatest of all Sith because of his ability to hide himself and his machinations until the proper time came to reveal himself. Even then, he cloaked his evil in the appearance of good, dropping the charade only when he achieved his goal.

Gedric Cahan lived in the shadows. His home stank, but this was not his fault; all of Coruscant's underlevels stank of sewage and staleness and the musk of the things that lurked therein. He kept it as clean as he could and did not squander his power on cleaning the air. Someday, he might have one of his people steal an air purifier, but he did not really care. He'd become used to it. _Do not forget_, he told himself. _Do not forget this humiliation. Use it. Feed on it. Let it make you stronger._

He sank onto the pallet that he used for a bed and crossed his legs in a meditation pose. Here, down so far in a place that had not known the touch of sunlight in a thousand centuries, he took no heed of day or night. _Now_ mattered to him, not the movement of worlds and stars, for power lay not in those transitory things, but in the Force everlasting; what matters a billion years beside eternity?

The dark whispered in his ear. _Your time comes, _it said, and no more. During the rest of his meditation, Gedric heard no more whispers of the Force. It did not matter. This was a true speaking, he knew it. He needed no more. As his meditation ended, he opened his eyes and sent little pricks of the Force out to those who served him, and he bade them return to him. _Watch_, he would say to them. _Watch, for our chance comes soon._

* * *

The shadow seethed. She had lost her _prize_!

Her wrath roared up into a consuming flame, hot enough to burn away even the fusion cores of stars, but she had not the power. She was a remnant of what she had been. Echoes of her had spread across the galaxy, and even now the shadow felt them, all whispering into the minds of the weak and downtrodden. Such minds had always existed; always would exist, so long as mortals held power over other mortals.

But that one, the one that got away...oh, what a champion for the light he had been! How it would have tormented her destroyer to see _his_ face when she saw them again.

But that was past. The shadow had other plans, other purposes. Time to work on them...


	3. Chapter 2

Author's Note: I've used line breaks to signal scene transitions. Starting with this chapter, I will use a # sign to indicate character transitions within scenes. In formal manuscript format, the # sign indicates an empty line. I hope this clears things up. Have fun reading, and don't forget to review.

* * *

**Ch. 2**

"Here is a question, Anakin Solo: what is the likelihood that sapient beings still exist after their deaths?"

"I'm here, aren't I?"

"Point. However, are you the true Anakin Solo? Are you an imprint of the man who was? Or, are you truly the soul and spirit of the Anakin Solo who was the hero of a galaxy?"

Anakin sighed. "Does it matter? If there is no meaningful difference between who I was and what I am now, am I not as good as the real Anakin Solo?"

Sekot smiled. "Death has taught you much, young Anakin. I am impressed."

"Thanks. Now, will you tell me why I'm here?"

"In a moment. First, I would have you meet someone." The boy held out his arm toward a tangle of bushes. They parted, and Anakin gasped.

A little thing, like a mixture of canine and feline with fluffy hair, walked out of the bushes. Blue-limned it came, a spirit whose power sang in the Force, and whose light Anakin knew as well as he knew his own face.

"Master," said Anakin.

"Oh, my friend," said Ikrit, "I would not have had us meet so."

"Master, why..."

Ikrit nodded toward the boy who watched the two of them. "Sekot brought me as it brought you."

"You...you defended me."

"It is my purpose. I could not let the dark thing have you."

Anakin could not speak as a lump grew in his throat. He wanted to throw his arms around the little Jedi Master, but Ikrit was a spirit, and Anakin was a spirit. What was there to hold?

"My boy," said Ikrit, "you needn't worry. I see you with the eyes of the Force. I know."

A small smile graced Anakin's lips. "I'm glad," he said.

"Ikrit," said Sekot. "It is time."

"Indeed." Ikrit sighed. "I suppose we must begin."

"Begin what?" said Anakin.

"The plan," said Sekot. The great plan I have worked on since the end of the Yuuzhan Vong war."

"What does it involve?"

"A thing that has been done before," said Sekot. "It is...dark, and dangerous. And there is a price to pay."

"What?" said Anakin, looking between Ikrit and Sekot. "What is it?"

"Anakin," said Ikrit, "can you walk a dark path while remaining true to the light?"

Anakin leaned his head back, considering his master. "That depends on the path."

"And the walker," said Ikrit. "I believe it is in you to do it. I believe that you have the strength of will to do what your brother could not. I believe in _you_, Anakin."

"Master, what are you talking about?"

"Come," said Sekot. The image of the boy waved a hand. A path opened in the tangle of vines and boras and all manner of plant life, and the boy held out his hand. "Go with Ikrit," he said. "I will see you there." The boy vanished.

Anakin turned to Ikrit. "Where are we going?"

"A confluence. A place where the future turns on the decision of one being." Ikrit wasn't looking at Anakin; he watched the path as though expecting something to leap out of it. Then he turned to Anakin. "Can you make such a decision?"

"Of course. A better question would be if I can live with the decision."

"Truth. Will you come?"

Anakin chose. He went with Ikrit.

He did not know as he chose how many evils he prevented, or how many good deeds would never be done because of his choice.

* * *

Behold Shalan Gorvannen, newly elected Chief of State of the Galactic Alliance.

She is Anx, with the great crescent head, wide tail and reptilian, clawed feet indicative of her species. Aged, her skin wrinkled, she was not accounted a prominent Senator during the time of Daala and the Jedi coup. But those who have known her call her wise, and heed her counsel. Indeed, she is wise, for her life has been long, and she has seen the fall of the Old Republic, the rise and fall of the Empire and the New Republic, as well as the birth and life of the Galactic Alliance. More than that, though, she has studied, and her subject of interest has been Palpatine. Shalan Gorvannen has studied the master manipulator, the colossus that bestrode the galaxy and bent all things to his will.

It is not an evil thing to study Palpatine, she tells herself. Knowing how evil achieves its goals does not bring evil into oneself; knowledge is neither good nor evil. Perhaps she is right. Shalan Gorvannen has no Force powers, no chance to let the dark side corrupt her or the light side blind her. She is the essence of what it means to be sapient: rational, cold when necessary, warm when needful, holding perfectly in balance the light and the darkness that live within her.

What better being to govern the galaxy than one who has mastered the good and evil that live in all things?

The Chief of State had a private comm line that only a relatively small number of beings had access to: high-ranking military leaders, Senate committee heads, other powerful Senators, and some few others. Right now, it was beeping to indicate an incoming message. Shalan looked at the readout: _Luke Skywalker,_ it said. Shalan sighed and said, "Show me."

The blue and ghostly head of Luke Skywalker leaped out of her desk. "Chief of State," he said, his voice slightly distorted with static.

"Master Skywalker," she said. She let her eyebrows droop. "To what do I owe the...pleasure?"

Shalan had to hand it to the Master; he never let a flicker of consternation or annoyance cross his face. "I am going to leave Coruscant in the next few hours."

Shalan let her eyebrows rise. "I thought you were dealing with the remnants of the Sith. Why do you wish to leave now?"

Skywalker said nothing for a moment, and he had a considering look on his face. "How much do you know of the being called Abeloth?"

"What you have told me. And what Wynn Dorvan said about her before he left office."

"Then you know that I have Jedi searching for a way to kill her?"

Of course Shalan knew. The Jedi may have left Coruscant, but they still informed the Alliance of their actions. "Did you not already kill her?"

"Defeat and death do not necessarily coincide," said Skywalker.

"A pity. What does this have to do with you leaving? Has this Abeloth returned?"

"No. I was...called...this evening."

"By whom?"

"Zonama Sekot."

Shalan's breathing increased. The galaxy held many wonders, but a living world... "What did it want?" she said.

"It knows something, something about Abeloth, and how to destroy her without the dagger the Jedi are seeking."

"I see. But know this: we need your Jedi here. They are the most effective weapon the Alliance has against the Sith."

"I didn't plan on taking them with me," said Skywalker. "Just my son."

"Then go with my blessing."

"Thank you. Skywalker out." The hologram disappeared.

Shalan sat back in her chair. Skywalker was still a hero in the eyes of the populace, whatever their dislike of Jedi in general. His name and his reputation held a power far beyond any Force abilities he wielded. The Sith who remained on Coruscant knew the name of Skywalker, knew his power and skill; his absence would embolden the Sith, and that was something Shalan would have to deal with. She stood then. Her old bones creaked, but she ignored them. She went around her desk and out the door. Her secretary had a desk just to the left of the door, and Shalan went to her.

She was beautiful, as humans accounted things. With hair of gold and dark eyes, she could beguile many humans and non-humans alike. Shalan did not care about any of that, though; she valued the woman's shrewd mind. "Rena," she said.

The woman looked up and smiled at Shalan. "Chief? Do you need something?"

"I do. Send word to Coruscant Security. Tell them to step up security at all installations where we currently have guards. If they need to, have them ask the military for troops to supplement them."

"Yes ma'am," said Rena. "May I ask what has happened?"

Shalan's mouth pursed. "The Skywalkers are leaving Coruscant."

"Ah," said Rena. "Is that news classified, or may I tell Security why they're receiving these orders?"

"No. They'll be able to guess when it hits the Holonews." Shalan looked down at her. "Go home. Get a few hours of rest. I know you've been here all night helping me. I can handle things without you for a time."

"If I go, I might just sleep through the day."

"It's all right. I have other aides. I can get along without you for one day. Go now."

Rena smiled at Shalan again. "Thank you. I'll gather my things and go."

Shalan nodded and gave Rena her own smile. Then she walked back into her office and began anew the work of the day.

* * *

This is what it is to be the living hope of the Jedi.

You are young, strong in the Force, skilled with a lightsaber, and you have played a part in the great events of your time. Mastery is not yet yours, not mastery of the Force or the blade, but everyone knows they will come in time. You come from a line of Force-wielders who were not simply strong, but who were stronger than any before them. You are a son of greater fathers, and that is only because you have not had the experience of those fathers. You present to the worlds a face of happiness, of joy in life. You have humor, looks, and personality going for you. You have a wisdom beyond your years that will only grow with time.

Yet there lies inside you a feeling that you cannot step into the shoes your family has worn; how could you do as much as they? The galaxy has laid all its hopes for the future on your shoulders, and you are not sure you can bear the weight of them. You handle it by not thinking about it too often. You let life and the Force lead you where they will, and take comfort in the knowledge that you have a bastion to lean against.

But the bastion will not be there forever, and though the bastion is strong, it is not invincible. The galaxy holds powers that can destroy it, and one day, one of them will succeed. Perhaps it will be an enemy, or perhaps it will be only the ravages of time, but it will happen. All things die, after all. Then all that weight will fall on you, and you will bear it, because that is what you have been trained to do.

And if you fail? Who can say what will happen? You can think of any number of nightmarish possibilities. But here is a secret you do not know: you can do it. You are a hero born and bred. It is in you to do great things. You are stronger than you know, and not in the Force. In the end, Force strength is merely an aid. _Your _strength, your fortitude, your inner will to succeed shall overcome every obstacle, and the galaxy will be a better place for it.

This is what it is to be Ben Skywalker.

#

Ben had already taken his things to the _Jade Shadow_, and had finished cleaning the mess he'd left in his quarters. The corridor he walked down had little to recommend it; this was one of the inner corridors, and there were no windows with awe-inspiring views here. He was alone; everyone else had already gone to the hangar to see them off.

"Ben!"

Well, maybe not everyone.

He turned. Tahiri, running with Force-enhanced speed, slowed and stopped in front of him. "What's up?" he said.

"I want to go with you."

"Um. Why?"

"I think...I think the Force wants me to go with you."

"You had a vision?"

"I think so."

"Well, it'll be Dad's choice, but you can come with me and ask him."

"Thanks." Tahiri fell into step beside Ben as he turned to go to the hangar.

He never felt right around Tahiri. A sense of unease permeated all of his doings with her. He'd felt like that ever since Tahiri had tried to seduce him to the side of Caedus. It was...wrong. Ben knew she'd been in the grip of the dark side, blinded by her own desire to see Anakin again, even if only for a fleeting moment, but still. Oh, he didn't mind the amorous attentions of girls his own age, but Tahiri had been twice as old as him. Yuck.

He trusted her now; really, he did. She'd proven herself since then, and he knew that she had repented, but he would probably never be able to shake the uneasy feeling that roiled in his guts. If not...well, he was a Jedi. He would deal with it.

"Ben?" said Tahiri.

"Hmm?"

"Something's wrong. Between us. I can feel it."

Stang. Should have kept his feelings hidden. He sighed. "It's that whole thing when you served Caedus. It's...hard to get over."

Tahiri remained silent. They turned into one of the outer corridors; one wall was made entirely of transparisteel, and it showed a view of the morning sun rising over Coruscant. "I'm not sure I ever said this, but...I'm sorry. It was...wrong."

"Wrong. Sure." Ben sped up a bit. He was a little taller than Tahiri, and his gait took him farther ahead of her.

#

You are Tahiri Veila, and at this moment, you want to disappear into the Force as Caedus taught you. It would hide you from Ben Skywalker, the boy, now the man, who does not trust you. He says, and has said to you, that he trusts you, but if so, it is a hollow trust. Little better than a lie, in fact. Hiding in the Force would keep him from feeling your shame, and perhaps would distance his thoughts from you.

It won't, though. You know this. He will remember you, will remember the things you have done to him. And why shouldn't he? Why shouldn't he remember the junkie who would do anything for another fix of her drug of choice? That's what it had been: a drug. Chasing after Anakin, after the fleeting moments when you could see him one last time had addicted you to it. By the Force, how could you have been so stupid as to not see it?

What a joke you are. You are the sidekick, the forgotten warrior who has played a part in every one of the hero's victories. You have played the part of villain, too, and then you played the henchman. You have never been the great one; you never will be. Yours is a lesser destiny, perhaps. Failure is a part of this destiny: failure to save the one you loved; failure to gain freedom from the shade of his death; failure to find him again; failure to stave off the dark side; failure to be even a worthy Sith; failure; failure; failure.

There exists one redeeming quality for you: you try to become better. In the end, this is all the light you have. Perhaps there will be more; you have accepted the death of Anakin Solo, the man you loved. A day will come when life happens, and love is reborn in you. This will be a different love, for the love you bore Anakin Solo will never die; can never die. Yet the field where the seeds of love take root is ever growing, and you can find new fields with a single glance. Take heart in this, for this is the essence of the light: ever and anon, it engenders more light; the dark can only consume until there is only itself, and then it perishes.

So you let Ben Skywalker go. Only time will heal the wounds between you, so go on; live. Let the Force guide you; it will not lead you wrong.

Knowing this, Tahiri Veila walks on.

#

"You know, sometimes I wish you were still Chief of State."

"Why?"

"Things were easier back then. The people trusted Jedi; I had only to ask to gain the help of the military."

"I think it has more to do with the fact that your sister was head of the most powerful government in the galaxy."

"Well, you're right."

"I'm a woman; I'm always right," said Leia. "What brought this on, Luke?"

"Shalan Gorvannen."

"Ah. I can't help you with that. Not unless she's a Sith in disguise."

"That isn't the problem. Sometimes, I just get impatient with people."

"We should mark this day in the history books."

Luke's brow furrowed. "What?"

"The mighty Luke Skywalker finally admitted that he's human."

"I don't think anyone's ever been in doubt of that. And I think you've been spending too much time around your husband."

"Is it that bad?"

"You _are _a bit more...Han-like than usual."

Leia sighed. "It's Hapes. We're not able to do that much while we're here due to security constraints. The festival has seen to that. Mostly, we've been keeping to ourselves."

"I told you that you should ignore Hapan ceremonies while Allana was being trained."

"It's not so easy. She has duties as Chume'da."

Luke sighed. "I understand. Tell Allana we love her."

"I will, and may the Force be with you."

"And you."

Leia smiled again, and her hologram winked out. Luke sat in the pilot's chair in the _Jade Shadow_'s cockpit. He let his Force senses expand to encompass the entire ship. It still held echoes of his wife, of the love she had for it. More recently, though, other echoes had gathered upon it, echoes of Luke and Ben. It had happened ever since Luke had been banished from Coruscant. They had lived and worked in this ship, and it had taken on some of the emotional charge of those days. It hadn't crowded out Luke's sense of Mara, but...well, never mind. It didn't matter. His Force senses detected two other presences on board the ship. One was Ben, and the other, a bit less familiar, felt like Tahiri, who followed some way behind. Luke frowned, wondering why Tahiri was there.

He dismissed the question and stood. The bulkhead door opened, and as he turned, Ben walked in, Tahiri appearing a few moments later. Luke clasped his hands behind his back. He looked between the two. "I sense tension between you. Why?"

"It's...nothing, Dad. Tahiri just has something to ask you."

Luke looked over at the woman. She fidgeted. She was nervous, then. "Yes, Tahiri?"

"Master Skywalker, may I come with you?"

Luke tilted his head. "Why do you ask?"

"Jaden Korr told me you were going to Zonama Sekot. I...I think I should go with you."

Luke tilted his head to the side. "I have no objections, but again, why?"

Tahiri remained silent for a moment. Then, "The Force...I think it is guiding me back there. Back where the Yuuzhan Vong are. I don't know why."

"Rarely does the Force tell us why. It is ours to do, not necessarily to question." Luke spread his hands. "As I said, I have no objections. You can come with us. I don't foresee any danger."

"I'm not afraid of danger."

"I didn't say that. But this trip might be boring for you."

"But not for you."

Luke sighed. "Did Jaden tell you what Zonama Sekot said to me?"

"No. He said no one knew."

"No one but Ben. I didn't know if he talked."

"Dad, I know how to keep a secret."

"Yes. But news spreads."

Ben rolled his eyes.

"Master," said Tahiri, "what did Sekot say?"

"Sekot thinks it knows how to kill Abeloth."

"The ten Jedi-"

"Sekot also said that they wouldn't find the dagger in time."

Tahiri tilted her head back as in consideration. "Then I should definitely go. If Abeloth returns, she'll try to kill me."

"All of us, Tahiri. She will try to kill all of us. Now go. Pack your things. We'll wait for you."

Tahiri smiled. "Thank you, Master." She turned and left.

Luke waited until her footfalls stopped ringing down the corridors, and then he turned to Ben. " Ben, tell me why you feel the way you do about Tahiri."

Luke knew. His perception of his son was a deep thing, a bond formed by love and time and a willingness to share that had grown between the two ever since Mara died. Luke saw his son, and saw better than Ben thought. He saw that Ben could handle himself, that Ben was strong, and would only grow stronger with time. But some things the young will not try to confront, and those are the times when a parent might step in to help a child. So Luke started this conversation, knowing it would cause Ben pain. He knew also that Ben would be stronger for facing this pain.

"You needn't resolve this now," said Luke, "but you will need to come to terms with it. You can't keep it bottled up inside."

"No, Master."

Luke held his gaze on Ben for a long moment. Then he nodded. He trusted Ben; the trust had proven true many times. "Just be careful, Ben."

"I will, Dad."

"Good." Luke walked toward the door. "Get the ship ready to leave."

"Me?"

"Yes."

"As you say, Master." Luke heard the tone of thankfulness in Ben's voice. He kept going, listening as Ben pressed buttons, toggled switches, and otherwise prepared the ship for launch. He went through the ship until he reached the corridor that turned onto the entrance ramp. There, he sat down with his back against the bulkhead. He closed his eyes and assumed a meditative pose. The ship around him began to hum as Ben set power thrumming through the hull and sensors and engines, but Luke ignored it all, focusing on the Force. Some short time later, he heard footfalls coming up the ramp. Pitter, patter, pitter, patter; the walker wore no shoes. Luke opened his eyes as Tahiri came up to him. "Master?" she said.

"Something has changed in you. The dark that hangs about you has...lessened. What happened?"

"I came to some realizations, Master."

"I see," Luke said, nodding. "Very good, Tahiri. Keep thinking about things. It's the only way you can come to know yourself. And _that_ is the only way to abandon the dark."

Tahiri smiled. "Yes, Master."

Luke smiled, too. "You know where you're staying?"

Tahiri nodded.

"Go. Get your things put away. We'll be leaving in a few minutes."

Tahiri bowed to Luke and ran toward her quarters on the ship. Luke stood then. He went back to the bridge, there to help Ben prepare them for leaving Coruscant.

* * *

Gedric ignored the woman standing before him. She had called him 'High Lord', but what was he lord of save some few sewers and abandoned buildings? She was a pretty thing, even by the standards of the Tribe, but he had learned long ago that beauty was meaningless. The old adage held true: beauty was only skin-deep.

Fair was her hair, and dark her eyes. She was a clean thing, so out of place here where one might encounter a dianoga in the sewers. Her crisp clothes spoke almost of a uniform, so formal and precise were they. It was necessary for her role as a secretary for one of the powerful among the Senate. She brought him news, kept him informed of the doings of the Jedi and the powers of the Galactic Alliance.

And he did not care to hear what she had to say, not right now. She, though a Saber in her own right, still required a lesson: power at the expense of discipline is of little use. Mastery, both of oneself and of the dark side, was the path to true power, beyond that granted by the Force. So he kept her waiting, sensing the weight of her impatience growing, the urgency to speak rising up, only for her will to crush it. It was, perhaps, a foolish thing for Gedric to do. The news she had could be important, but unless it was news of an impending strike on the Sith-she would have told him of that regardless of his orders-it could wait while he taught this lesson.

At last, when the impatience turned to anger, he bade her speak.

"Skywalker is leaving," she said

Gedric's eyes snapped open. "Where are they going?"

"I don't know, my Lord. The Alliance Chief of State has a strong mind. I do not think I can cloud it sufficient for her to...forget our conversation."

"No. You were wise not to attempt it. Go. Find what information you can."

"As you command, Lord Cahan." The woman bowed and left.

Gedric feared. It was the secret he kept buried under countless layers of power and guile and all manner of deceits, but it still waited, eating at Gedric Cahan. He feared Luke Skywalker. He feared the ease with which Skywalker defeated his enemies. Luke Skywalker had defeated Abeloth, who had left the City of Glass in ruins. Luke Skywalker had defeated Palpatine, Caedus, had been instrumental in the defeat of the Yuuzhan Vong. Luke Skywalker was the deadliest person Gedric had ever heard of.

The Sith lauded pride, but the wise among them balanced pride with caution. Those who sought power at the expense of all else inevitably found it, for the dark was generous, and it could grant all the power one could desire, but only through wild abandonment of the self. Mastery of the dark side limited the power one could wield, but it opened new vistas of possibilities.

Ultimately, mastery meant understanding one's own limits. Gedric Cahan could not beat Luke Skywalker, and he accepted this fact. It galled, it grated, and it kept him alive. The gall and the grating fed his power, but he turned the power within, using it as a spring to catapult his mind deeper into the Force, where all answers unfolded in the dark. There, the Force whispered in his mind, _The time comes. The time comes._ Always, it said this. "When?" shouted Gedric in the loneliness of his hovel. "How?" he howled.

And the Force answered. _Now_, it said; _here_. In the dark of Coruscant's underbelly, Gedric detected a new darkness in the Force. He stood. He left his home; the two Sabers outside watched him.

"My Lord," said one, "where are you going?"

"I do not know. The Force will lead me." Gedric leaped off the ledge in front of them. He used the Force to slow him as he fell, and so the hunt began.


	4. Chapter 3

**Author's Note**-Remember to review

* * *

**Ch. 3**

The mind of Sekot exists, in part, in the midichlorians. The genetic code in all native Zonaman life is longer than it should be. These extraneous genes, often called junk DNA, perform a very special function: they act as computers. It is possible to use DNA to interpret and process information, even as the computers used by most of the sapient species of the galaxy. The midichlorians provide the link between all Zonaman life, allowing the disparate computers to act as one, serving as the physical vessel of Sekot's consciousness.

There is more to it than that. The crust of Zonama, as most planets, has a layer of bacteria that exists deep down, near the mantle. These bacteria feed off the hydrogen generated by igneous rocks, and, in total, the biomass of these bacteria far exceeds the biomass of everything that lives on Zonama's surface, including in the seas. In Zonama's case, however, these bacteria are also bacteriological computers, communicating by chemical means. Again, the midichlorians in the bacteria allow these computers to contribute to the mind of Sekot.

The meaning of all this is simple: Sekot is intelligent on a scale the rest of the galaxy cannot fathom. The knowledge and understanding the world can bring to bear on a subject defies imagination. This power, this ability to understand things at a level no other sapient being can grasp, is its greatest strength. It can focus this might on a scientific problem, overcoming engineering issues with its ships in moments; it would take most people in the galaxy years to even understand what the problem was in the first place.

When Sekot turns its mind to matters of the Force, it can seemingly work miracles.

* * *

In the dark under Coruscant, Gedric ran.

He was faster than the two Keshiri who followed him. They would never rise above the rank of Saber; they had not the power, wisdom, or abandon to become Masters, much less Lords. He, born of the stock of the human Sith who had crashed on Kesh five thousand years ago, abandoned himself to the dark side, following its will instead of his own. To master it, one must give the appearance of obeisance; then, when you have allowed the dark to lead you where it wants, you take for yourself the gifts it grants to do with them as you will. His path took him through tunnels and buildings that had not seen the sun in unnumbered years. The darkness he sought, the darkness that waited for him at the end of this hunt, pulsed in the shadows. It felt old, this darkness. It had waited, untouched, unseen, and unknown for years. Gedric did not know what it was; he knew only that the Force brought him to it.

Deep underground, he leapt across chasms in the rubble left from the Yuuzhan Vong war, or maybe it was from the destruction Abeloth caused. Gedric did not know, nor did he care. Occasionally, he passed by some denizens of the deep, but so fast did he move that he appeared little more than a blur to the drug-addled minds of Coruscant's underdwellers. One yelled at him, but Gedric shot past, and the humming and sizzling as one of the Sabers behind cut down the dweller followed behind him.

He did not know how long he ran; he was the embodiment of the dark, and what does time matter to the infinity that is darkness? He barely even saw the sights he passed beyond; the dark filled his mind, saying, _Go here, then there. Leap now. Cut through that door. Your prize waits._

Then, the dark said, _Here._

Gedric stopped. He stood before a door of durasteel, dusty with age. It _felt _old in the Force. It was not ancient, had not been there since before buildings eclipsed the light of the sun. But it was older than Gedric. It had been here for many, many years, festering but hiding. Whatever was within hungered for release. Gedric reached out with the Force and encountered...life. No, not life, but a simulacrum of life, much like the mind of an everyday droid. The ability to choose based on the presence of certain variables: that was what existed in the door. And it existed in the Force. Someone had used the Force to infuse the door with the ability to decide to whom it would open. And it _reeked_ of the dark side.

Gedric let the dark side flow through him and into the door. He felt a sort of consideration coming from it, but it would not open. Then he detected something more, something...odd. Something unusual, strange enough that he would not have otherwise thought to look for it.

Sith alchemy.

Whoever had made the door had used the powers of Sith alchemy in its making. There was a will in the door, left there by the alchemy and magic of a Sith practitioner. Such powers were rare in the galaxy; most who followed the dark side used powers similar to the Jedi's. This, though...only a truly powerful being could do this. And Gedric knew that the door would only respond to power similar to that that created it.

Gedric turned his power from the door, looking inward. He turned his power on itself, touching the dark well that was his power, and he drew it out. He mumbled a few words, forcing the world to conform to his will as he closed his eyes. A flash of light as bright as a sun burst into being in front of him for an instant. The two Keshiri behind him yelled as the light blinded them, but Gedric had no time for that. The door was opening.

The will within the door projected a sense of joy and happiness. Had it a way to speak, it would have bid him welcome. He waited as it opened to see what lay beyond, but there was only blackness, barely illuminated by the bare and dim light that lit the tunnel in which Gedric stood. He reached out with the Force, but he felt no danger from within. The dark side still waited in this place, pulsing with life not unlike that in the door, but stronger by far.

The door shut behind him. Gedric ignored it. He felt as the Keshiri Sabers regained their sight, felt it as they started to ignite their lightsabers to cut through the door. Gedric sent them a bidding in the Force that commanded them to wait. He alone could enter into the dark place; he would not have those two destroy out of ignorance his chance to gain whatever lay within the room.

Gedric looked about, but with the door already shut, the darkness was absolute. The Force guided him, though. He could feel the darkness in the room, darkness that could not escape these walls to betray its location to any who might seek to destroy it. The dark power came from deeper in the room, at its center. The Force led him across a floor clear of clutter. It bade him step up, and as the darkness grew stronger in his mind until it seemed that Gedric was less than a meter from it, the Force bade him reach out his hand.

He touched something, felt the will that lay at the heart of the darkness reach out and touch him. Then light sprang into being. Gedric squinted and leapt back, one hand reaching for his lightsaber, the other thrusting out as lightning began to crackle at his fingertips.

A laugh echoed around the room, deep as the dark beyond the stars. "Fear not, my brother. I will not harm you." The voice, not quite as deep as the laugh, held a tone of contempt. As Gedric's eyes became accustomed to the brightness, he took in the sight before him.

The vision was tall, humanoid, with a long, extended face, the body whipcord thin and draped in robes of black and deep blue. The bottom of the face, where a mouth would have been, was covered in a mask. Gedric reached out with the Force again, but he felt nothing from the being except the darkness that had pulsed earlier. Then he noticed that the being floated in the air, its feet half a meter and more above a cube of black stone. Then Gedric understood. "A holocron," he said. He lowered his hands, letting the lightning flicker out.

"Indeed," said the being. Its long hands rested at its sides, and its head tilted back. "Tell me your name, Sith."

"I am Gedric Cahan, High Lord of the Sith, member of the Tribe of the Sith of the planet Kesh." He spoke with pride; he would not cow before this old Lord. He could feel the dark power in the holocron, could tell that it held vast knowledge. He would possess it. He would indeed.

"High Lord," said the hologram. "An interesting title. You must tell me all about you and your tribe."

"In time," said Gedric. "I would know your name first."

The hologram smiled. "I am...I _was_...Darth Plagueis."

* * *

Allana Solo's death starts as a plan in Javar Nimur's mind. He knows where she is: Hapes, capital of the Hapes Consortium, there to uphold her duties as Chume'da. She is on vacation from her Jedi studies. He knows the layout of the Fountain Palace. He knows who protects her: the Hapan Royal Security Forces, of course, but more importantly, Tenel Ka Djo and Leia Solo, one a powerful Jedi, the other the sister and scion of two of the most powerful Jedi the galaxy has ever known. He knows he has a window of opportunity that will swiftly close. If he does not take it, the child will return to Shedu Maad, where she studies as a Jedi, and he will never be able to enter that place, not with all the Jedi who study there able to sense his intentions.

He is on Hapes even now; so many people are there. They, like he, have come to see the Chume'da who had risen from the false grave her family had fashioned for her. Times changed; the galaxy changed. No one saw it. His neighbors on Hapes, they all whispered about the child as though she were a hero. For what? Surviving? Admittedly, that was a feat in Hapes's political arena, but so what? Many had done it before; what had Allana Solo done to...

That was the problem. Allana _Solo_. Javar's lip curled. Daughter of _Jacen_ Solo. _None of his line will survive. I will see to it._ Jacen Solo had murdered his daughter. Jacen Solo had shattered his family. _You and yours will suffer the same pain I have felt. _No more Jedi rulers. No more will these so-called demigods lord their powers over 'lesser beings'. He would see to it.

Time was when Javar would never have considered doing this. He had been an engineer working as a contractor to help develop Hapes's defense technology. His daughter had grown up watching the military life, and she chose to make it her life. That was during the Killik crisis. After that, Javar had hoped for peace. Hapes took little part in the wars of others, not when those wars meant little for Hapes itself. They would have never gotten involved in the Second Galactic Civil War, not if the Alliance and the Confederation had not gone to war over the matter. If Hapes hadn't...

No. Not if Hapes hadn't. If the _queen_ hadn't had an _affair_ with Jacen Solo, all of this would be moot. But she had, hadn't she? She'd borne him a daughter. She _loved _him, and then she turned on him. The fool. If she had kept her legs shut, none of this would have happened. No Second Galactic Civil War, no Jedi Coalition, no Battle of Shedu Maad...

No death. No passing away of Javar's daughter. She'd been on one of the Battle Dragons when the _Megador_'s long-range turbolasers opened up on them. The ship had been destroyed. Shana had died. Had been _murdered_. And Javar's life as he knew it had ended.

Now he stood in the midst of a crowd that waited in a great hall to see and hear the Queen of Hapes speak. The girl would be there; she would not dare miss this event, not even for her Jedi studies. Ah, yes, they're coming out even now. Slowly and subtly, Javar threaded his way through the crowd toward the dais. He had his blowgun and the neurotoxin-tipped dart safe in its sheath; all was ready.

Allana Solo was going to die.

* * *

The light that was Zonama Sekot sang in Anakin's spirit. A glory of trumpets and percussion instruments made a mighty clangor that spoke of the unified power of Sekot. A choir ten thousand strong sang a song whose words he could not grasp, but it brought to his mind the thought of the one will that wove through all that lived on Zonama. Behind all this vast noise, strings played, nearly unheard behind the blaring of trumpets and the myriad voices, but still there, waiting and guiding the whole enterprise.

"The song is not eternal, Anakin Solo."

Anakin looked to his side, where the voice had come from. The boy walked beside him, matching Anakin's every stride.

"How do you know what I'm feeling?" said Anakin.

The boy shrugged. "There is little I do not know about what goes on here. You are open to the Force; I have already heard the song before; easy enough, then, to guess what you were feeling."

"If you know the song, what is the sound that lies behind everything?"

The boy smiled. "Can you not guess, Anakin Solo?"

He could. "The Force?"

"Not a difficult thing to guess. The Force is the source and support of the universe; it gives succor, grants silence when necessary, sonority when not. What else could stand behind me?"

"You're getting prideful, Sekot."

"It is not pride to acknowledge truth. My nature makes me greater than you; this is truth. To be prideful, I would have to say that it makes me _better _than you. I am not. I am subject to the same desires and foibles as any other sapient being. Life does not change, Anakin Solo, no matter how powerful or intelligent you are. It simply makes your mistakes more disastrous."

"Are you making a mistake?"

The boy looked at him. "Perhaps. I cannot say. I know only that this is the best way I can take."

Anakin kept silent for a moment, then he said, "Why won't you tell me what your plan is?"

"Because," said Sekot. "I want you to know all my reasons for what I did and do before you choose. I want you to choose without foreknowledge of what I plan to taint your choice."

"You do know this is only going to make me more suspicious, don't you?"

Sekot sighed. "Yes."

Anakin considered for a moment. "Tell me, then."

Sekot walked in silence. The boras shaded them, but the heat of Zonama's summer still made it a sweltering place. Why could Anakin feel it? He was but a spirit, a ghost; why should the material world interfere with him?

"It happened not long after the Yuuzhan Vong returned. I was in orbit around Klasse Ephemora. The Force sends me visions, too. I saw the galaxy fall into darkness, but it was not the darkness of the dark side. The dark was all the vices and hatreds and jealousies that fester in sapient minds, all risen to the fore and guided by a hand I could not see. I had not the knowledge of the creature Abeloth, not then, but I have learned since then. She...yes, I can call Abeloth 'she'...has no petty ambitions to rule the galaxy. She desires dominion over the power that controls the universe itself."

"She wanted to become one of the Ones," said Anakin. "She wanted to rule the Force itself."

"Better to say _guide_. No one being can command the entirety of the Force; it is infinite, and finite things cannot hope to command it fully. But dominion does not necessarily entail absolute domination. You are, in essence, correct."

"I still don't understand why you called me back. Do you intend to set me up as one of the Ones, with yourself as the Father?"

"I do not know what will happen. It may be that that is what must happen to finally destroy Abeloth. I did not see the path to victory. I saw only that you must play a part if Abeloth is ever to be defeated."

A note of concern entered Anakin's voice as he said, "There's only one way I can do that."

"Indeed," said Sekot as they came upon a clearing.

When Anakin saw what lay within, he said, "Oh, no."

* * *

There is a darkness in Jaina Solo's heart. The seed of it has been there since the Yuuzhan Vong war began. The first flowering came when Anakin died, and she turned to the dark to assuage her fear and hatred. The dark found its full blooming when Jaina killed Caedus...when she killed Jacen. Only the dark can allow such an act: the killing of a brother whom you love, regardless of his deeds, can come only through the embrace of the dark. Jaina knew when she chose that she would have to face the darkness within, have to embrace it. She walked a line deadly as any lightsaber blade: accepting the dark within while rejecting the dark without.

Now there is light again in Jaina Solo-no, now she is Jaina Fel. Who would have guessed, all those long years ago, that she would marry the former Head of State of the Empire? Time was when Jaina would have found a good psychiatric ward for such a person. Now, he is the light that guides her way through the dark morass that duty and the Jedi way might have become. Jagged Fel, her husband, is the glorious sun rising after the night. Someday soon, a new star will be born. The protostar has not yet developed out of the nebula of possibility, but it will happen. It is the way of life.

But now is not the time to think of such things. Now she must pilot the skiff bearing herself and the man she loves to Hapes. She is almost there, mere meters from the ground of a docking bay in the Fountain Palace. The ship descends with slow grace, touching the ground as lightly as only a master pilot can manage. There is a slight shake, the one unavoidable, ungraceful movement that Jaina cannot avoid.

"I love watching you fly," said a voice.

Jaina looked over at Jag. "Why?"

He smiled. "You love it. You love it more than any pilot I've ever seen, except maybe your father. It's freedom for you. You can do whatever you want, without having anyone tell you what to do."

Jaina smiled. "You mean it's not like that for you?"

"It is," said Jag. "It is. But I haven't been able to pilot much in the last few years, and it was never like what it is for you. You're...more alive when you fly. That's why I love watching you."

"Oh, I know why you watch me," said Jaina with a smirk on her face. She turned back to the control panel and began powering down the ship. She felt it as he got up and walked over to her; she pretended not to notice as he leaned down, his mouth near her ear.

"That's only one of the reasons I watch you," whispered Jag. "You know the others."

Jaina grinned. Now wasn't the time for that, though. Through the viewport, she could see a robed Hapan standing in the entrance to this docking bay. Her hands were clasped behind her and her face was carefully blank, but as Jaina stretched out her feelings, she detected an aroma of annoyance coming from the woman. "Someone's not happy with us," she said.

Jag looked out of the cockpit to the woman at the entrance. "We are a bit late."

"Your fault," said Jaina.

"I wasn't the only one who enjoyed it."

Jaina's grin widened. "Out of the way, flyboy. We've got a ceremony to get to."

As they exited the skiff a few minutes later, the Hapan woman was already walking to meet them. She stopped a few meters from the two and inclined her head toward Jaina in as slight a bow as she could manage. "Master Fel," she said, "Hapes welcomes you and your husband to this gala. As you requested, your arrival has remained secret to all save the Queen and the few dignitaries such as I who had the need to know. We have kept this information secret from your family, also as you requested."

Jag looked over at Jaina. "I thought you said your mother knew."

"I said _probably_. She can sense me through the Force. She _probably_ knows I'm here already."

"If so," said the dignitary, "she has made no mention of it in anyone's hearing, as far as I know."

"Hmm. Odd," said Jaina. "In any case, are you here to take us to the gala?"

"Indeed, Master Fel." A slight frown crossed the woman's mouth when she pronounced Jaina's surname, but it passed swiftly. "If you will follow me, I will lead you there." She turned on her heel and walked toward the docking bay's entry. Jag and Jaina followed.

"Maybe you shouldn't have taken my name," said Jag.

"People are going to have to get used to it." Jaina grinned up at him. "I'll admit, though, it doesn't have the same ring to it that Jaina Solo does."

"You wound me, dearest wife."

"I'll wound you further if you don't start moving faster."

"I thought this was supposed to be a fair and equal partnership."

"We're on Hapes. Here, _I'm _the one in charge."

Jag grinned and leaned down closer to Jaina. "We'll see about that."

_This_, Jaina thought, _is going to be a fun visit._

#

_Search your feelings. To be strong in yourself, you must know yourself. Examine your emotions always and forever, learning how they strengthen and weaken you, so that you may know when they control you. When emotion controls you, your choices fail to be rational. You must control emotion, that you may make your choices calmly, centered in the Force._

Leia had learned some of those tenets of Jedi philosophy early in her political career. A politician could not let emotions run away and take reason with them. Similarly, the Jedi, often steeped in diplomacy, holding the fates of worlds in their hands, had to make decisions that stemmed from logic and rationality, not the wild chaos of emotional heat. Now, she holds her emotions in her hands, examining them.

The first is pride. Some call it the great vice, but nothing in the universe has only one side. Pride has many facets, like a diamond cut to refract light into an array of colors. One facet is the overweening, destructive pride religions speak of, the pride that brings to ruin all the works of mortals. Another facet is the pride that grants strength in oneself, the pride called _self-respect_. It is not an evil thing to have pride in one's accomplishments; one must simply not let that pride dominate.

Leia feels neither of these. She feels a third type of pride: pride in another. Allana stands before a crowd of thousands, waving her hands in the short, elegant movements that make royalty seem genteel to the masses. She does not quail before these people, does not bow to the shyness that would affect most of the trillions of younglings in the galaxy had they been put in this position. She has grown strong in herself. For this, Leia is proud.

She is also sad. Leia was a princess, too. She knows the trials that life will press on Allana, knows it from her own experiences in childhood. And, oh, how much worse they will be for the girl; Hapes is not the place Alderaan was, a world satisfied with its place in the galaxy, mostly free of the scheming and murder that infest the Hapan court. _I would protect you from this, if I could_, she thinks to herself as Allana goes to stand behind her mother while Leia waits behind them, beside Han. She cannot, though. For the sake of the future, she cannot.

Leia fears, too. She fears the dangers Allana will face; the galaxy may be at peace right now, but Hapes is never safe. It is more than that, though. Leia fears what Allana may become. She knows what Luke saw, knows about the Throne of Balance. She knows also what Jacen saw in the Pool of Knowledge: Allana standing beside the dark man. Who can say what it means? Prophecy is never clear. But the galaxy is ever in motion; Leia can only try to shape events as they come.

A prick of concern entered Leia's mind. The Force whispered to her: _danger_. She looked around slowly, as though simply looking out over the crowd rather than scanning it for threats. She kept Allana and Tenel Ka in her peripheral vision; they were marching up the dais, smiling, both beautiful in their gowns. The sensation of Jaina's presence pulsed, distracting her, so Leia shut out the feeling. Jaina had been coming closer; maybe she would hurry if she felt how worried her mother was. Leia sent a sentiment of warning to Tenel Ka, something that said, _Be careful_, and she felt an acknowledgement from the queen.

The queen must have made a hand signal Leia did not notice; security forces began their work. Leia sensed people around the stage acting with purpose, with determination, a concern emanating from them that became a focus on life. The queen's life, and her daughter's life, to be exact. Leia could guess what was going on: scanners deploying, snipers scanning the crowd, droids monitoring for variables that a human mind might not notice. Leia drew on the Force to augment her senses, and the danger spiked in her mind. She turned, saw a face, an arm, a hand drawing something from beneath a robe. In the space of a second, Leia judged her chance of stopping whoever it was, dismissed it, and reached out her hand to draw the Force as a vise around Tenel Ka and Allana to pull them away.

The second cost her. A dart flew from the person, straight at Allana.

* * *

The clearing held a body.

Anakin knew the body as well as he knew anything. He had seen it countless times, in health and injury, clothed and unclothed. It held no mysteries for him, and upon seeing it, he began to understand part of Sekot's plan.

It was, of course, his own body.

* * *

**Author's Note**-Credit for the idea for the technology behind Sekot's mind goes to the Orion's Arm Universe Project. They call it 'bio-geo computing'. You can find that and many other fascinating concepts at their website.

I hope you enjoyed this. Surprises await and suspense builds in the next chapter. Keep reading, and remember to review. Constructive criticism can only help.


	5. Chapter 4

Author's Note: Sorry about the long delay; I've been working on several original fiction short stories. Thanks for reading, and when you're done, I'd appreciate any constructive criticism you might have.

* * *

**Ch. 4**

Sachees Meed, a Gran, crouches in a factory full of vats filled with molten metal. Those vats come perilously close to the other sentient beings in the place. The floor and walls are of some brownish metal turned red by the light of white-hot durasteel and other alloys. Shadows reach up the walls and shift about as the vats move through their paths.

In his hand, Sachees holds a piece of machinery, some old and forgotten scrap of a greater machine. He can feel the computer within it, can feel the information once held in it, and can even divine a taste of that information if he tries hard enough. He does not know it, but this is all a sign of his talent with the Force. It is power he does not know of beyond the stories of Jedi that everyone has heard. He knows, though, that it is not normal, and sometimes, in the dark of this decaying factory, in the cot where he sleeps, he wonders if he is mad. His time here has broken him, he thinks. He cannot stand it another day.

The reason he cannot stand it comes closer. He feels the Weequay in his mind, knows that he is coming. He thinks it a knowledge born of years down here, an instinct born of fear of the lash the Weequay holds. He cringes before the whip strikes him, cracking through the thin sheet he uses for a shirt and slicing into his back. Electricity flows from the whip into his body, and his muscles spasm, making him drop what he holds.

"Pick it up!" says the Weequay in a growl. The lash strikes Sachees again. He falls to his knees as that thin string of metal cuts through his skin, nearly hitting the bone. _He would choose the metal one_, Sachees thinks, and rage rises in him, a searing needle of flame that passes from red-hot to white-hot straight on to purple-hot. His hands become fists, and it is all he can do to keep from throwing all that hatred at the Weequay.

He can tell when the Weequay raises the whip for a third strike, and Sachees makes a choice. He will kill the Weequay if it strikes him again. The decision is born of rage, but of itself, it is cold, and, having made the choice, his rage subsides. The whip is near the apex of its climb as the Weequay pulls back-

A klaxon squalls.

The Weequay lowers the whip. "I'll deal with you after the meal," he says, and walks off. Sachees Meed lets out the breath he had not realized he had been holding. He stands, hands still twitching from the shock, and stumbles out, following the line of other beings to the meal line.

His bowl of slop is a synthesized blend of nutrients fit for most species, and it tastes like burned metal. It is also all he is going to get, though. He eats in a room adjacent to the factory floor where he works, a place large enough to hold the nearly one hundred beings working in the factory. The only light comes from the smearing luminescence of the molten metal coming through the entryway; configurations of shadows move and shift along the floor and walls. Sachees goes swiftly to a corner where the light does not reach, and in two minutes, the bowl of slop is empty, his spoon clattering as he lays the bowl on the floor.

He does this every day. The other workers, the bigger, stronger ones, intimidate the weaker ones into giving up their meals. Sachees sees, though. He sees that the weaker beings are those who have worked longest in the factory, who have worked years for little wages and insufficient food, their muscles gone slack with age and malnutrition. In time, those big, strong beings will be small and weak, and newer workers, still large and strong, will scare them into giving up their food.

_It need not be this way_.

Sachees swallows. The voice of the shadow is back. It is a sign of his madness, he knows it. He shrinks into the corner, trying to squeeze away from wherever the voice comes.

_Why seek to hide from me? I want only to aid you._

No. You're just a voice in my head. Leave me be.

_I am truth. I am knowledge. I am salvation. Let me in, and I will take you from this place._

Where? Where can you take me?

_Where would you like to go?_

Home. Home, where my sister waits.

_We can go there, if you wish it, but I cannot aid you if you do not allow me in. Only together can we leave this place._

What must I do?

_We both have desires. When I aid you in the fulfillment of yours, you must aid me in the fulfillment of mine._

Sachees considers. If it is madness, what matters reality? He will not know truth from falsehood. If it is true...if it is true, what then?

_Freedom from this place. From Nar Shaddaa, if you wish it. You may go where you will. I will not hinder you._

But...

_There is no hope, save in me. There is no justice, save in me. To stay or leave is your choice, but only through me can you leave here alive._

There is only one decision Sachees can make. He has no other choice.

He lets in the shadow.

A fog he had not known was there lifts from his mind. It is as the shadow has promised: truth and knowledge wait for him, revealed by the power of the shadow. He sees and senses the world about him in ways he could never have imagined before. More than that, though: he can change the world.

Sachees stands. It is a slow unfolding, power and purpose driving him this time, not despair and resignation. He walks with foreboding grace toward the doorway.

A Gamorrean guard steps in front of him. It squeals something at him in a language Sachees does not know, but the shadow aids him in understanding. "Get out of my way," he says. He does not slow his stride.

The guard squeals at him again, hefting a great vibro-axe.

Sachees smiles.

A twitch of his fingers snaps the bones in the Gamorrean's neck, and another twitch sends the porcine guard crashing into a wall. The head of every being in the room turns at the sound of breaking bones, and they stand when the guard falls in a heap on the floor. No one moves.

Sachees ignores them. He maintains his pace out of the door, and then...ah. He comes now, the Weequay overseer, brandishing his whip.

"Get back in there!" he snarls, raising the whip. Then his face contorts in puzzlement. "Where is the guard?"

"I killed him," says Sachees.

"What?"

"I killed him," says Sachees again, enunciating each word slowly.

The Weequay's mouth twists as he lets out a growl and lifts the whip above his shoulder. "Die, then," he says.

The whip moves, but Sachees merely raises his hand, and the lash stops in midair. The Weequay watches, his face slack with amazement. Then it shifts into horror.

Sachees raises his other hand, opening his fingers wide. Lightning flashes out of him, power greater than anything that whip could have unleashed. The Weequay's body jerks and twists, and he tries to scream, but the pain has gone beyond screams, has become a living thing that chokes down every sound he can make. The Weequay's blood begins to boil in his veins, and his eyes melt from the force of the lightning. Finally, the bolts turn his brain to ash, and only then does Sachees let the lightning die away. Weequay and whip fall to the floor, smoke rising from both of them.

Sachees turns. Behind him, in the entryway to the eating room, beings watch him. Now, he can feel their fear, their terror, and the shadow whispers to him, _Better to be dead than to live like them_. Sachees agrees.

The shadow's power rises in him, burgeoning as he raises his arms to the ceiling, and he calls forth the lightning again. A thousand, ten thousand bolts rush from his fingertips into the ceiling, and the electricity conducts through the metal of it, down the walls and into the floor. Machinery grinds and computer consoles spark. Conveyor lines stop. Living beings die. Sachees stands in the midst of it all. When the electricity reaches his feet, he takes it into himself, channeling it through his body and out of his fingers again, becoming a loop of power that has no end.

When he senses that everything in the factory is dead or destroyed, he lets go of the lightning. He stares at his hands. Power...power such as he has never dreamed of before. The shadow laughs in his mind. _Do you see?_ it says. _With me, all things are possible._

Sachees nods, and together, he and the shadow walk out of the factory and into the wide world.

* * *

When her mother cut herself off, Jaina started running. She let the Force flow into her, let its power set her muscles ablaze. The speed it lent her made her a blur, passing through corridors and carven halls faster than any eye could see. Danger sung in her nerves, but she was the danger; she was the fear of her mother; she was the anger of a broken man. She was the walls of the place and she was the poison on the dip of a dart. She was the understanding in her own mind that she could not get there in time to save Allana.

But she was also Jaina Fel, of the lines of Anakin Skywalker and Han Solo. She did not know the meaning of _impossible_.

And because she was also the dart flying toward her niece, she could influence it.

At this distance, the Force could only barely act on the dart, but Jaina knew what her mother was doing. Knowing that, all she had to do was put a bit of pressure on the dart. It slowed slightly, just enough so that it passed through the space where Allana had been and fell to the dais.

* * *

"I've never heard the name," said Gedric.

Plagueis laughed. "I am not surprised. I never revealed myself on the galactic stage. Doubtless you have heard of my apprentice, however."

"Who?"

"Darth Sidious."

Gedric's eyes widened. "You trained Palpatine?"

"Indeed. Palpatine...he was a true Sith of Bane's kind, but he could not see that the Grand Plan was a sideshow, a distraction."

"Grand Plan?" said Gedric.

"To overthrow the Jedi and return the Sith to power in the galaxy."

"He succeeded."

"A passing victory, Lord Cahan. He did not seek power absolute. That is why he fell. He could have had it all, but he never saw the path to true power, a path we could have walked together had he not killed me."

Gedric's eyes narrowed in thought. "When did you die?"

"Oh...more than ten years before Palpatine's ascension to Emperor."

"How do you know what happened after that?"

Gedric could not see the mouth behind that mask, but he fancied that it smiled. "Did you think I would make a normal holocron?" said Plagueis.

So it was true. The Sith of Kesh had no holocrons wherein former masters of the dark had infused the holocron with their very spirit. It had never been necessary. In any case, most Sith of Kesh did not die of old age.

"I have watched," said Plagueis. "I have watched Coruscant, and through it, the galaxy. I have seen much and can teach you so much more, Lord Cahan. Let me complete your training in the more esoteric uses of Sith power. Then, when you have mastered all aspects of the dark, I will show you the way of the true Sith."

"My people have been Sith for five thousand years and more. What makes you think you know better than I the ways of the Sith?"

Darkness gathered round, and the voice of Plagueis boomed and rumbled, shaking the walls. "Tell me, Lord Cahan: what is the difference between Jedi and Sith?"

Gedric looked askance at the hologram. So many possible answers... "What do you mean?" he said.

"Answer!"

Power coalesced around the hologram. Gedric took hold of his own power and-that was it. "I know the answer!"

"Speak."

"The Jedi submit to the Force; the Force submits to the Sith."

The power flowing around the spirit stilled. "Indeed," said Plagueis. "As it is with us, so it must be in all things."

* * *

A feeling that said _Jaina_ spiked in Leia's mind. Leia's pull snatched at Allana, and the girl shot backward. The Force swirled around the dart, and it slowed lightly. It slipped past Allana, never touching her flesh or Tenel Ka's. Air friction slowed it further, and the dart followed a ballistic curve straight to the floor. Time slowed as Leia called the Force into her body, speeding her thoughts and limbs. In an instant, she loosed her hold on Allana and turned to face the person who'd fired the dart. She had never seen him before, and she lifted her hand, cast out the Force. The man's arms snapped to his sides and his clothes pressed close to his flesh as the Force held him in a tight grip. Leia heard her voice shouting something at security guards in red, understood that the Force was acting through her. She cast her mind about, seeking for any hint of ill will among the gathered people, but found none backed by harmful intent.

"Han!" she heard herself bark. "Get Allana away from here!"

Leia could not see as he nodded, but the Force whispered his agreement in her ear. To the guards, she shouted, "That man!" She lifted him a little higher in the air to show them the right one, then lowered him back to the ground. When the security guards had him cuffed, Leia turned to Tenel Ka, but the queen had already retreated behind the safety of her guards, following Han and Allana. Leia looked around again, trying to sense an accomplice, but all she felt was confusion and fear from the beings gathered in the hall. Why, then, did the Force keep whispering _danger_ in her mind?

Leia darted after Tenel Ka, constantly scanning hallways and chambers and even the small gardens for danger. As she neared a hallway ahead, two security guards raised their blasters, pointing them down the hall. "Stop!" shouted Leia, putting all her years of diplomatic and wartime training into it. At the sound of a voice of command, the guards paused. "That's my daughter!"

"Lower your weapons!" shouted Tenel Ka as Leia's sense of Jaina grew stronger. They did, and then Jaina was there, standing beside Allana, looking around with her lightsaber drawn but not activated.

Han just stared at Jaina. "What are you doing here, kid?"

"Dad," said Jaina, "I promise we'll talk in a little while. Right now, just get Allana to safety."

"Yeah. Right." Han looked over at the security guards who were trying to get their attention. "All right, all right, we're going. Sheesh, you'd think there was something wrong."

Allana tugged at Han. "Come _on_, Grandpa. We don't know if we're safe here."

"Okay, okay. Whatever happened to _me _being the one who got _you_ to safety?" Han started jogging alongside Allana. Jaina kept pace with them. Tenel Ka followed just behind Han, and Leia took up the rearguard as they went.

#

The garden of the Queen of Hapes had a secret stairwell known only to the Royal Family and the Lorellian Court. By dint of being the family of the Chume'da, Han and Leia were escorted down it by Tenel Ka and Trista Zel. It led into a bunker filled with computer equipment. The walls were dark, but lights came on at the approach of Tenel Ka.

"How does it know that...well, that you're you?" asked Han.

"Numerous ways. DNA scanners, pheromone signature scanners; the equipment also scans my irises, my brain waves, and several other signature features." Tenel Ka looked over at Han. "We have very sophisticated security here on Hapes."

"Doesn't that," said Han, "you know, take too long? What if someone was chasing you?"

"Then we wouldn't have used this place," said Trista. She sat down at a computer and called up security screens showing different areas of the Palace. "It's for emergencies where the Palace is deemed safe except for a possible handful of people who mean the Queen harm." She typed something, and another screen appeared. "It looks like Jaina and Jag are doing a good job of coordinating the search." The woman glanced at her Queen. "Majesty?"

"Hm?"

"This place is supposed to be secret. Only you and...your closest allies should know."

Tenel Ka smiled. "Should I not trust Han and Leia Solo?"

"Majesty, you know that's not what I meant-"

"I understand, Trista, but there are times when such rules must be relaxed. This is one of those times."

Trista sighed. "Yes, Majesty. It still sets a bad precedent."

"I would not do this if it were any but these two people."

"Mama," said Allana, "are you talking about-"

"Allana," said Leia, "it's okay if your mother keeps some secrets from us. _You _know Han and I would never betray them, but some secrets are too dangerous to ever speak out loud."

"Doesn't mean we have to like it," said Han.

"Princess Leia is right," said Trista. "We're taking a big enough risk by letting you in here."

Trista looked over the holographic images floating in the air. "Majesty, might I leave and begin interrogating the prisoner?"

"Go," said Tenel Ka. "I think we'll be safe."

"Taryn and Zekk are on their way in," said Trista. "They should be here within the hour."

"Good. Now go. Do your duty."

Trista nodded and inclined her head to Tenel Ka in a bow. "Of course, Majesty," she said, and then she left.

Allana sat in a chair in front of a computer. "What do we do now?"

"We wait for the all clear sign," said Tenel Ka, taking a seat by Allana. "Then we can leave."

Han was looking around. "Are there any more rooms in here, Tenel Ka?"

She nodded and pointed to a stretch of wall. "That is actually a door. Through it is an armory." She pointed to another stretch of wall. "Through there is a meal preparation area, as well as a large stock of supplies."

"You plan for everything, don't you?" said Leia. She, too, took a seat.

Tenel Ka sighed. "When you are a Queen among a pit of vipers, you can take no chances."

"Yes," said Leia. "I know."

Silence fell for a long moment. Then, Han said, "Hey, I'm going to take a look at the armory." He turned to the door and then paused. "It's not going to electrocute me or anything, is it?"

Tenel Ka smiled. "No. Now that I am here, it will only harm intruders at my command. "

"That's good to know," said Han. "Does that mean that if I annoy you, you'll..." He waved a hand in the direction of the door.

Tenel Ka laughed. "No. Go ahead, Han."

Han eyed the door, but when he neared it, it slid up. When he went through, he stopped. "Wow," he said.

Leia smiled. "He'll be happy for hours, playing in there."

Allana tugged at Tenel Ka's sleeve. "Mom, something's wrong."

Tenel Ka looked down at her daughter. "What is it?"

"I don't know. I just feel...cold." She wrapped her arms around herself.

Leia stretched out her senses in the Force. She felt nothing out of the ordinary, but...the only analogy she had to it was dimness, like the sun had darkened just a shade. She swallowed. "Can we get Jaina and Trista on the comm?"

"Of course," said Tenel Ka. "What do you sense?'

"I'm not sure. But the dark side is here on Hapes."

#

It weighed on Jaina, the darkness. Like a miasma, she seemed to draw it in with every breath despite the light that flowed through her. She grabbed the nearest security guard. "Take as many squads as you can and guard the Queen's garden."

"What's going on?" said the guard, a tall man dressed in battle armor the color of the Royal House's sigil.

Something tickled the back of Jaina's mind, and she turned to a corner where a woman in servant's livery was inching by. She had a look of fear on her face, but Jaina sensed nothing from her. Jaina let go the security guard and went toward the woman. The woman turned away from her, but Jaina increased her stride. As she neared the woman, the Force spoke danger in her mind, and she leapt away as the woman spun, a blaster in her hand. Three bolts flashed toward Jaina, but her lightsaber was already up, batting the bolts back at the woman. The woman dove away from them, and when she came up, she held something else in her other hand. Crimson light shot from the thing, and it buzzed as the woman leapt toward Jaina.

"Go!" shouted Jaina as she locked blades with the woman. She sent the Force pushing at the woman, who took the momentum and used it to flip herself around. She pointed the blaster at the security guard, but Jaina had already leapt to the man's defense. As she deflected the bolts away, she yelled, "Go! Tell them the Sith are here!"

* * *

Tahiri contented herself with staying in her cabin. She would not go to the bridge, not while Ben was there. His turmoil had come clearly to her through the Force; it would do no good to remind him of her when he was in such a state. He would only get angrier.

Her cabin was small, clean, even neat. She had stowed her packs under her bunk for the moment. They fit perfectly. If only she could.

Meditation was not Tahiri's greatest gift. She was an able warrior, but no philosopher. Wisdom...well, wisdom seemed like a far-off galaxy shining faintly in the night sky, barely visible even at the best of times. Most nights, she could not even see it. She was not like Master Skywalker, who could step into that far galaxy and bring a piece of it back.

She kept the lights off in her cabin; the absence of stimuli helped her concentrate. Tahiri fell into a meditative trance, quieting her mind, becoming an empty vessel for the Force to fill. The dark in her cabin became the dark in her mind became the dark between the stars became the dark of the intergalactic void. The entire universe, from the brightest quasars to the infinite darkness of black holes existed at once in her mind, for she was one with the Force, and the Force is all.

She was not alone in the universe. An unimaginable number of particles formed into atoms that became molecules that became an infinity of diversity. From the mono-cellular life that pervaded the universe to great world-minds and forms of life still greater and vaster, the universe held infinite wonder.

Some of those minds noticed her. They took no care for her; she was an infinitesimal speck of nothing in the turning of the cosmos, and all her deeds would amount to nothing by their measure. In a way, that comforted her: there existed things beyond her power to influence, and she had killed one of Abeloth's avatars; by extension, there must exist beings that even Abeloth had not the power to influence.

Even in an infinite universe, all power must have its end, even if that end is invisibly far away.

The universe in her mind dwindled away, becoming a galaxy, then a solar system, then a ship, and finally, nothing but herself. _This is all I can control, and it is all I can ever truly know. Here lies the truth I have sought and seek still. _

Suddenly, the ship shuddered and shook, and for an instant, reality itself seemed to distort. The sensation passed, but Tahiri had already opened her eyes and used the Force to summon her lightsaber to her belt. She knew what this was. The only time a ship shuddered like that was when it had unexpectedly dropped out of hyperspace.

Someone had interdicted them.

An alarm klaxon sounded in the hallway as she brought her comlink to her lips. "What's going on?" she yelled.

"We've been pulled out of hyperspace by an Interdictor cruiser," said Luke's voice. "I don't know who did it yet. They're not hailing us."

"I'm on my way," said Tahiri.

"Very well," said Luke, and he cut off the channel.

Tahiri called the Force to lend wings to her feet.

When she reached the bridge, Luke was in the pilot's chair, already trying to hail the cruiser. Ben was in the co-pilot's seat doing something with the sensors. He pointed at the navigator's chair without looking up from his work. "Try to plot us a course out of here," he said.

Tahiri said nothing to him; she simply nodded and let her agreement flow into the Force. Ben went back to his work as she sat and pulled up the navigation screens. The mass shadow was huge, and the cruiser had already accelerated toward them, though its laser cannons would not reach firing range for some time.

"Interdictor cruiser, please identify," said Luke. He had pulled the _Shadow_ into a dead stop. His voice was calm, but the indicator lights on Tahiri's screens showed that he had already activated the missile launchers. "Cruiser, identify now. Command code four zee eight two seven aye."

Tahiri recognized the type of code: it was a code identifying the _Shadow_ as a Jedi vessel. The code was only in use by the military, and-

"Dad!" said Ben. "They're dropping TIEs! One, no, two squadrons!"

"Stang!" said Luke. He cut the channel with the cruiser and spun the _Shadow_ around, igniting the engines as he did so. He also dropped two concussion missiles out of their tubes. The _Shadow _shot away, but the TIEs had already gained a great deal on them. "Tahiri!" said Luke. "As soon as we're out of this mass shadow, I'm going to make a microjump. Be ready to plot a course."

"Right," she said. She turned her attention to the navigation screens, but in the Force, she could sense the concussion missiles Luke had dropped. She assumed he was going to use them like the shadow bombs, squeezing their detonation triggers when the TIEs reached them. Indeed, she felt him reach out with the Force-

A shout of the Force pushed the concussion missiles out of the way. They exploded, but they were too far away to do any damage to the starfighters.

And Luke hadn't been the one who pushed them away.

Someone in one of the TIEs had.

Ben's voice was quiet as he said. "Dad, I think the Sith are here."

"Yes," said Luke. There was steel in his voice. "I think you're right, son."

* * *

The body held some slight differences from the body Anakin had had when he died. This one was older, the age he would have been if he hadn't died. And it was...pure. This body bore no scars of battle, nor any stain of darkness. It had been kept in a vegetative state since its "birth;" there was no darkness for it to have experienced.

"You can't do this."

The voice sounded like Anakin's, was Anakin's, but it couldn't be. He hadn't opened his mouth to speak. Had he?

"It can be done," said Sekot. "I require only your consent."

"You won't get it." Anakin was walking backward now, in slow, halting steps. "This isn't right."

"Anakin," said Ikrit. His voice, so quiet, held a power profound and deep. "You do not yet understand all that is happening."

"No?" said Anakin, turning to Ikrit. "I understand enough. You want to transfer me into that body."

"Yes," said Sekot.

"That's dark side power. I won't be a part of it."

"Stop acting like a child, Anakin," said Ikrit.

Anakin stopped. "What?"

Ikrit closed his eyes. "The dilemma is this, Anakin: can the use of dark power defeat darkness?"

"No," said Anakin.

"In a morally simplistic universe, you would be correct. The universe is not simple, though. You call the light good and the dark evil, but consider something. The highest expression of light is a sun, and what is that? A ball of plasma that nothing can survive. It is only by keeping its distance from a star that life can exist."

"The highest expression of darkness," said Sekot, "is a black hole: all-devouring and inescapable. _But only if you come too close._"

"There was a moment," said Ikrit, "when your brother was the most powerful thing in the universe, stronger than Abeloth, than Sekot, strong as the Ones themselves. He was in _perfect_ balance with the Force. He was the fulcrum on which light and dark turned. What is a fulcrum but a point through which movement transfers but that does not itself move? _That _is the point of power, Anakin, the moment when you can choose what to make of the universe. Do you know what Jacen chose?"

"No," said Anakin in a whisper.

"He let it go," said Sekot. "Power to change the universe, and he let go. Oh, he killed Onimi, and that was a great thing, for Onimi was as terrible a foe as any Jedi has ever faced. Yet the battle between those two did not concern the balance of the Force, but rather concerned the existence of the Force itself. When Jacen won, when he let go the power he wielded, the Force remained out of balance, with no countervailing forces to stabilize it. In essence, that is what we are asking of you: balance the Force."

Anakin pushed his hands against his head as though trying to block out their words. "You don't...you can't know what you're asking."

"Don't we?" said Ikrit. "We are asking the impossible."

"How-?"

"Anakin," said Sekot, its voice a calming tonic, "no one being can do it. I cannot, nor can you, or Luke Skywalker, or Abeloth. I have not foreseen that. I know only that you are a key to doing it."

Anakin looked up at the boy. "_A_ key?"

The boy smiled. "The Force is a web of near-infinite complexity. One thread may support many others, but it cannot bear the weight of the entire web. Other threads must help it bear the strain."

Anakin lowered his hands, staring at the ground. A decapede crawled through the strands of grass, its body a riot of color that was either an indication of poison or a clever lie to scare away predators. "I can't know the right thing," he said.

"What does the Force tell you?" said Ikrit.

Anakin called on the Force, drew it into him. Its light nearly burned him, so strongly was he drawing on it, but he let himself be as pure a conduit as he could be. Then, with his mind, he cried out a question: _What should I do?_

And the universe said nothing.

Anakin thought of the fulcrum, of the point that transferred movement but did not itself move. The analogy wasn't a good one. A fulcrum could not choose, could not change the balance. You needed a weight on each end to maintain the balance. The Son and Daughter had been the weights on the Force, and the Father had been the fulcrum in the middle. But why? Why had they ever fallen out of balance?

_Because of you_.

"Who said that?" Anakin looked around, searching for the source of the voice.

Ikrit looked at Sekot, then back at Anakin. "No one said anything, Anakin."

"I heard-I heard a voice. It said something. 'Because of you.'"

"Was it the Force?" asked Sekot.

Anakin paused. Why would the Force have said that? Anakin hadn't been alive when the Ones fell out of balance. "I don't know. I suppose it could have been."

"What," said Ikrit, "were you thinking of when you heard the words?"

"I-" Anakin paused again. "I'm not sure I should tell you that. I think...I think the Force meant those words for me alone."

Ikrit tilted his head back. "As you wish."

"Can I...can I have some time alone?" said Anakin. "I need to think about things."

"Of course," said Sekot. The boy turned to the spirit of Ikrit. "Come," it said.

As they turned to go, Anakin sat on the grass, and he thought.


	6. Chapter 5

Author's Note: Sorry about the long update time. Here it is, and I hope you enjoy it.

* * *

**Ch. 5**

When Jaina's lightsaber cleaved the Sith woman's head in two, she didn't even pause. She shot down the corridor to a place where she heard the screech of blaster fire. As she neared an intersection, she saw a group of guards firing on a pair of Sith who were slowly advancing under a hail of fire. Few of the rebounding shots actually hit the guards, who were hiding behind the walls and shooting from that cover, but neither did any of the bolts hit the Sith. One of the Sith turned his back on the guards while the other slid in front, blade moving to intercept all the blaster bolts coming at them. The first Sith charged down the corridor toward Jaina.

She had a trick to try. She used the Force to clamp one of his feet to the ground. He fell, swinging at her, but Jaina dodged the blade, bringing her own sweeping down. The man's head fell off, and then Jaina was upon the other Sith, both weaving in and between the blaster bolts. There was a shout from the guards, and the blasters ceased their fire. The Sith grinned, his face gleaming a blood-red color in the light of his blade, and he drove a powerful attack at Jaina's head. She ducked and brought her blade flashing forward so that it caught the Sith in the heart. He stopped in shock, and then Jaina cut off his hands, letting his lightsaber fall to the ground still lit. Then the man, too, fell dead to the ground.

Jaina whirled toward the guards and shouted, "Get to the queen's garden! Call all available guards to meet you there! And check every single one to be sure you know them. There may be imposters."

The guards nodded and turned to go. From the opposite direction came the sound of running feet. Jaina turned to see Trista coming down the corridor with a contingent of guards carrying repeating blasters. "What's this about the Sith?" said Trista.

"They're here for Allana," said Jaina.

"Why?" said Trista. "I mean, why other than the obvious?"

Jaina shook her head. "Family secret. We need to get to the garden."

Trista didn't waste time insisting on a reason; instead, she pointed down the corridor the other guards had gone down. "This way," she said, and started running that direction.

Jaina sent her Force senses over the contingent of guards, detecting nothing but men of purpose, worried about their queen. She couldn't take the chance that one of them might be a Sith in disguise. Nor could she say why the Sith would want to kill Allana. Vestara Khai had to have given her allies the knowledge that Allana would be the Jedi queen. Yet all the Sith were on Coruscant, weren't they? How could they have gotten here, unseen and unnoticed, when every databank on Coruscant was supposed to check the identity of everyone who left the planet? They must have had operatives on other worlds. Jaina cursed under her breath. Would there ever be an end to these Sith?

When Trista and Jaina reached the entrance to the queen's garden, there were already many guards there. They had formed a defensive formation in the entryway, several units having overlapping fields of fire, and some of them turned toward Jaina's group. "Identification!" one of them shouted.

Trista spouted a jumble of numbers and letters, and the guards lowered their rifles and allowed them to pass. Jaina again swept her Force senses over the guards and the garden within, again feeling no Sith imposters. She stopped Trista and let her contingent of guards go by. "The Sith aren't here," said Jaina, "which means they'll be going somewhere else. Does that hidden place in the garden have an exit somewhere else?"

Trista nodded. "Near a secret hangar for the queen."

Jaina raised an eyebrow. "Secret hangars in a palace?"

Trista shook her head. "It's an escape tunnel with a ship in it. We're only supposed to use it in emergencies."

"This qualifies, doesn't it?"

Trista looked down the hallways, nodding.

"Take me there," said Jaina.

"What about your husband?"

Jaina grabbed her comlink and set it to Jag's frequency. "Jag, do you copy?"

"I copy." His voice was full of static. "What's going on, Jaina?"

"There're Sith here. Get back to the skiff and take off."

There was a pause. Then, Jag said, "This is one of those Jedi things, isn't it?"

A small smile tugged at the sides of Jaina's lips. "Yeah. It is."

After another pause, just long enough for a sigh, and Jag said, "Be careful."

"I will." Jaina felt a stab of pain in her chest, a longing to go to him, to be with him if the Sith found him. She would _not_ lose him, not after she'd found such happiness. But she was a Jedi, a Master, and her duty mattered more. _Personal _wasn't the same as _important_. "You be careful, too," she said. It was the closest she was going to come to _I love you_.

A short burst of static signaled Jag's sign-off. Jaina clipped the com unit on her belt and turned to Trista. "Come on. Let's get there before the Sith."

They ran.

#

Han grabbed a repeating blaster from the rack in the armory and slung it over his shoulder. He also took a one-handed stun blaster; he remembered the time during the Swarm War when Admiral Bwu'atu's soldiers had taken down Leia with area-of-effect stunner. This was one of the newer models, capable of stunning an entire room, though it only carried a few shots' worth.

The call had come down from the comm. station: "Jedi Master Fel says there are Sith in the palace. She has engaged one. We're sealing off all access to the royal garden." Han had gone into the armory, looking for weapons that might help him defend his granddaughter. Tenel Ka had divested herself of her royal robes and was fitting into a combat jumpsuit that had a lining of _beskar _in it. Leia had done the same. The Lorellian Court, who had provisioned the armory, had even left a jumpsuit there fit for Allana. Han had been in military dress, so he didn't need to change his clothing.

Han could handle danger; he was a Solo, a hero of countless battles. But it hurt to see the ones he loved going off into danger. It wasn't so bad when it was Jaina or Leia. Both could handle themselves in a fight, and they were both better prepared for fighting Sith than he would ever be. But seeing Allana in danger brought a chill into his heart. She was precious to him in a way he could not describe: last remnant of his fallen son, a light to hold back darkness and despair. She should not come to such danger, should not bear the burden of destiny that Leia said lay in her future. Sometimes, when he lay awake at night, he wished he were a Force-user. He would be able to tap the power that had brought such misery, such joy to his life. Darkness or light didn't really matter to him. They were words to describe powers he couldn't begin to command. It seemed to him that one's own nature determined whether one chose light or dark rather than any corruptive or enlightening effect the Force might have.

There was no more time. Leia and Tenel Ka were picking detonators and grenades off the wall, and Allana held a blaster pistol in her hand. It would not be much use against a Sith, but it was better than nothing. When they were finished, Tenel Ka took the lead. She led them back into the main chamber and touched a few controls on the computer. A door slid open, revealing a tunnel carved out of the same stone that formed the castle. It was low, and wide enough for two people to walk side by side. Tenel Ka held her lightsaber at the ready, not igniting the blade. "There are no lights until we reach the ship's escape tunnel. We will need glow rods." She took on from her belt and turned it on, illuminating the farther reaches of the tunnel. She stepped forward.

This was the part Han hated the most. He knew Leia and Tenel Ka were extending their Force senses, trying to detect any foes ahead of them, but this tension, this creeping along, got on his nerves. He followed behind Tenel Ka, letting Leia act as rearguard: she would be better suited to fighting if the Sith came in behind them. Allana was just behind him, holding her blaster; Han didn't know what she was thinking, didn't turn to look at her to see how she might be handling her feelings. He didn't know if she was tense but keeping cool, or if she was unnerved at the circumstances. Again, he wished he could wield the Force, if only to know such things.

They did not encounter any Sith in the tunnel, but as they reached its end, Tenel Ka motioned for them to stop and turned off the glow rod. Han heard Leia coming forward, and they remained silent for a moment, and then Leia said, "Something feels wrong."

"What?" said Han. "Sith?"

"No," said Leia. "There's no one on the other side, not as far as I can tell; but there's a...foreboding in the Force."

"Foreboding?" said Han. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know," said Leia.

"I think we must go on," said Tenel Ka. "Waiting gives the Sith more time to catch us up."

Han nodded. "Let's go."

#

It took Jaina and Trista ten minutes to reach the escape tunnel. They stopped, and Jaina put her hand on the door. "There's someone on the other side."

"Who?"

Jaina reached out, and she found a presence as familiar as her own reaching out to embrace her. She smiled. "It's Mom. I think Tenel Ka and Allana are with her."

Trista let out the breath she had been holding, closing her eyes as if in prayer. She opened them. "Good." She reached out to palm the door open.

_Behind!_

Jaina spun the instant the Force spoke to her. Her jaw dropped; her eyes widened. Five Sith were coming up the passageway, and they seemed not to exist in the Force. Then, sudden as lightning, they were a part of the Force again, the cloaks of the Force they had hidden themselves in having fallen. Five crimson blades ignited, and as the door swished open behind her Jaina shouted, "Go!" to Trista, following behind. She felt the alarm of her mother and Tenel Ka, but she did not turn to them, did not seek to reassure them, keeping her focus instead on the doorway and the foes beyond it. Suddenly, her mother was beside her, having leapt across the tiny hangar to her side. They stood in the doorway, a Jedi Master and a Jedi Knight against five Sith whose powers and skills they could not yet measure. The door was barely wide enough for two people to fit through, and there, Jaina and Leia made their stand.

#

Javar Nimur sat in an interrogation room. That much he knew. But his mind seemed...distant, or perhaps lost. A fog lay heavy on his thoughts, fog the color of despair. He felt loose, as though thinnest thread bound his spirit to his flesh. The past was obscured; the present hazy; the future unseen. He knew he was alone; his captors had left when the klaxons started blaring. So annoying, those klaxons, screeching and wailing, dispersing his thoughts before they could gather.

Voices sounded in the hallway outside: yells dulled by the duracrete walls and durasteel doors. The voices dopplered past him, fading into obscurity. Javar did not even have the wit to understand what they were saying. In time, more voices came, passed by, and departed. Then Javar was alone, without even his own thoughts for company.

The door slid open, and Javar looked on a beautiful young woman in servants' livery. She had a scar on one side of her face, and...and she smiled on Javar. The fog on his mind lifted, and he could think again. Memory was slow in coming to him, but he knew he had seen her before. "Who are you?" he said.

The smile widened, and the girl-yes, she was a girl; younger than his daughter would have been-spoke in a voice to haunt Javar's dreams. "We don't have time for that, Javar. The enemy are here, and we can't wait. It's time to go." She held her hand out to him. "Come with me?"

Javar took her hand, but a thought pierced through the veiling fog. "Wait. Your name...what is it?"

The girl frowned. "You'll have to learn obedience. We can't have you questioning your superiors."

"Please," said Javar, standing. "All I ask is your name."

The girl was silent for a moment, and then she spoke. "My name is Vestara Khai. In time, though, you will simply call me...Master."

* * *

The hawk-bats endemic to Nar Shaddaa roosted on spacescrapers and made their nests in the bleak corners where no one ever bothered to look. They were one of the few non-sentient species to survive on that world that had been so blasted by industrial toxins (not to mention the Yuuzhan Vong) that virtually the only animal and plant species were the ones that had adapted to city life. They stayed out of the skylanes, keeping close to the buildings, dominating that space, but on this night, they were not alone.

The thing that fairly flew through the air was bipedal, with three eyes on short stalks. Its name was Sachees Meed. He leapt across walkways, scaled buildings with nothing but his hands, dropped ten stories and landed softly as a falling feather. The shadow was with him, whispering to him secrets and teachings he had never before imagined.

_Stop here_, said the shadow.

_Here_ was the top of one of the shorter spacescrapers, a vertical farm building that grew food for the moon's inhabitants. _Hide,_ said the shadow, and Sachees took shelter beneath the vent hood of a great fan that drew air into a purifier before bringing it to the plants in the building. From far off came the sound of sirens coming closer, and then security speeders shot past Sachees, heading the way he had come from.

_They know some of what happened at the factory,_ said the shadow. _In time, they will find out that we did it, and they will come for us_.

They're no match for me.

_If we kill them too brazenly, they will call on the Jedi._

That gave Sachees pause. With the shadow, he was more powerful than any Jedi, but he was not invincible. Enough of them could, conceivably, overwhelm and kill him.

_Caution is our ally. Keep to the shadows. Hide in the dark. Go to your sister, but do not tarry._

"I won't," said Sachees aloud.

When the sirens had passed beyond his hearing, he came out from underneath the vent hood, and he went to the side of the building. Far below was a walkway bridging two buildings. Sachees gathered power and cloaked himself in shadows. Then he leapt off the building and fell for a long time.

The power let him alight like a hawk-bat on the bridge, and those few beings that noticed him he sent away with mere flicks of his fingers, making them forget they ever saw him. Then he let fall the cloak of shadows and walked into the light.

With the shadow in him, he saw the world anew. The beings around him seemed hollow, but something glimmered in the shells of their flesh: a feeble light stained with darkness. In some, the light was stronger, and in others, the dark ruled. He saw more shadows than light.

_It is the way of all things_, said the shadow. _Darkness is the natural state of the universe. That is what you wield, through me: the power of the infinite void between the stars. Remember that all stars, all galaxies, are but motes hanging in the dark. In time, we will bring the dark to all things, so that they may see how all things bend at last to the will of the dark. _

Is that your goal?

_It is._

Then I will help you with it.

The shadow in Sachees's mind seemed to smile, and he smiled, too. Beings gave him odd looks when he did; no one smiled out here in the depths of Nar Shaddaa. Sachees did not care. What were they but drones in this...this _hive_ of a world that seemed to thrive on the blood of the poor? By blood, the strong survived, and by blood, the weak became strong.

_Do not doubt it. Even the legendary Luke Skywalker has the blood of millions on his hands. All great heroes stand on a mountain of corpses they made with their own actions. All beings of power must hurt and kill to gain their power. But first, you must accept that blood and death are necessary _for_ power. Without that acceptance, I could not have aided you or given you the knowledge and power you now wield. Do not fear that acceptance. Death merely _brings_ power. Once you have it, you may use it as you see fit. If you use it to bring peace, well and good. If you do not...so be it. The choice is yours to make._

Sachees nodded. A Twi'lek looked at him askance, and Sachees felt in the male's mind the curiosity and, yes, fear he felt. Sachees considered sending him tumbling off the walkway, but he decided against it. Killing without reason was a waste.

Yet that was what he had done in the factory, wasn't it?

_Could you have saved them? Could you have made for them new lives? You know that taking them out of the factory, killing only the guards, would have done nothing for them. Some of them were addicted to drugs. Others worked off debt that their wages could never fully pay. If you had killed only those that deserved to die - say, only the strong ones who harmed the weaker - what would you have accomplished? They would succumb to drugs again, or thievery, or they would have been enslaved by another cartel. You could not save them. You gave them the only freedom you could. Do you think they fear now, or want for anything? They have passed beyond such things, become one with the Force, as the Jedi say. But the Jedi do not understand. The Force is everything, and what is everything? A vast and empty universe, speckled here and there with motes of being. They have become nothing, as all things eventually do. You were merely a tool that sped them to that ultimate fate._

Yes, thought Sachees, and the thought occurred to him that, in time, he, too, would face that end.

_I assure you,_ said the shadow, _that will not happen for a long, long time._

When Sachees came to the end of the walkway, flush with the spacescraper, he hailed an air taxi, sending out his will to bolster the call. One came down, settling beside the platform. The canopy rose to reveal a female Ryn pilot. "Where you headed?" she said in Basic.

Sachees gave her the address as he stepped into the back of the speeder.

"Long way away. Probably going to take a few hours to get there."

"I can wait," said Sachees. "Let me sleep for now."

"Show me the credits first."

Sachees lifted a finger and laid his will against hers. "I'll show you when we get there."

"No," said the Ryn. "You show me now, or you don't go."

The shadow laughed in his mind. It sounded surprised. _Some things are beyond even the power you wield, _it said.

Sachees sighed. He should have known he would get a cabbie with a strong mind. He put his hand in the pocket of his trousers and pulled it out again, holding it palm-out. There was nothing in it, but his power gave the illusion of credit chits. "Will that do?"

"Good enough for me," said the Ryn. She closed the canopy and rejoined a skylane. "You mind if I play some music for a while?"

"Only if you keep it low."

"Sure, sure," she said. "No problem for a paying customer." She turned on the music player. One of Sy Snootles' old hits blared out, but the Ryn woman turned down the volume. "Sorry," she said. "Won't trouble you any further."

"Thank you," said Sachees in a murmur. He called on his power, and he and the shadow leapt to the stars.

* * *

"It is time, High Lord. Take my vessel from the pedestal and leave this place. Seventy years have rather soured me on the décor."

Gedric Cahan chuckled as he laid his hand on Plagueis's holocron. When he picked it up, the voice of Plagueis continued in his mind. _Never forget that a Sith is mortal, and has all the desires and emotions of any other being in the galaxy. We merely subordinate those emotions to our wills. Humor, charity, even love: a Sith may feel these and still be Sith. Humor acts as a damper against the madness power can bring; charity is the giving of unneeded resources to strengthen those who serve you so that they might better serve you; and love...love has caused more shedding of tears, both in joy and in sorrow, than any hero's deed or tyrant's depredation._

"We Sith of Kesh have known this for five thousand years. If we didn't, we would never have been able to survive as a society."

_No, _said Plagueis. _But many who gain power let that power corrupt them. The dark side is vicious. You must master it, or it will, in its own insidious, poisonous way, master you._

"I begin to wonder if I need you at all, Lord Plagueis. What use are you if you cannot tell me anything of value?"

_I wonder, Lord Cahan, if you understand how important you are to the other Sith who remain in the galaxy._

That made Gedric pause. "What other Sith?"

_The Sith, _true _Sith, are a cancer to the Force. We are part of the Force, but we grow ever stronger, taking more and more of the Force until we _are _the Force. We never die. The Sith will remain, despite all the workings of the Jedi and doings of the Force. Though our members may fall, the Order, the Order of all Sith, remains. They are out there, even now, working some scheme that neither you nor I see. Conflict may exist between individual Sith, but all Sith, whatever their creed or species or upbringing or innate nature, work toward one goal._

"Dominion of the galaxy," said Gedric. He started walking toward the room's door.

_No_.

Gedric stopped. "If not that, what?"

_This is the goal of all Sith: to control all living things, and through them, to control the Force itself._

Gedric...said nothing. He was not sure how to respond to Plagueis. The thought seemed vaster than his mind could contain. To command the Force...the very concept, the very _idea_, that he, or any other Sith, could bind to his will the power that drove the universe...it was intoxicating. Such power. It boggled the mind.

_Sit, Lord Cahan. Sit, and consider_.

Gedric sat on one of the steps leading to the pedestal. His mind roamed free to make what thoughts it would. It was an old form of meditation: in attempting to quiet one's own thoughts, distractions occurred, random thoughts burst upon the mind, and often those random thoughts contained the answer or the seed of an answer to one's question. He did not open himself to the Force; he wanted no knowledge of distant events, no visions of the future. All he wanted, right now, was to seek in himself an answer to the one question that now held him in its grip.

If Plagueis was right, how could five thousand years of Sith fail to see the truth?

The way of the Sith was conquest. That had been so since the days of Naga Sadow and the Great Hyperspace War. The great Sith masters of old had gathered tremendous power to themselves through mastery of the dark side and study of the art of Sith magic. The Sith of Kesh had some skill with those arts, but much of the knowledge of their Sith masters had simply not come with them to Kesh. Great masters had not been on the _Omen_ when it crashed, and the Sith of Kesh had simply had to reconstruct the knowledge through trial and error. Some of the lore of Sith philosophy had also been lost to them, but in five thousand years, Kesh had produced millions of Sith; surely one of them would have seen this basic fact.

The voice of Plagueis should have broken in at that point, but the old Dark Lord said nothing. Gedric paid no attention to that thought; he was so intent upon his own musings that he lost track of the world around him.

Maybe there had been Sith who came to Plagueis's understanding of the Sith imperative. There had been philosophers and hermits among the Sith who had gone off to seek mastery in their own ways. The fate of such people was almost always the same: new Grand Lords rose in Tahv, and spread their hands over the world of Kesh until all must either submit or die. New Grand Lords always required the accession of all Sith to their wills. It was in their nature; they could not abide the thought of any Sith not bowing to their power. If some hermit didn't, then the new Grand Lord would kill him, out of fear that he would attain some mastery that would give him power to overthrow the new Grand Lord. So fragile, the ego of Sith Lords.

Admittedly, it was fragility born of experience and caution, but fragility nonetheless.

That must be it. The warmongers among the Sith must have corrupted the understanding of their philosophical underpinnings. Precepts that would have once directed the Sith toward the path of greater arcane power had been forgotten, and the new precepts directed them toward the acquisition of greater mundane power. Yet it seemed to him much like the Jedi quest for mastery of the Force. The Sith who turned down that path must of necessity remove themselves from the world, and all Gedric's instincts rebelled against the thought of turning away. He could not countenance the thought that it was the duty of the Sith to turn away from the galactic arena and explore the realms of arcane dark side power. Sith _ruled_. That was the beginning and end of the matter. It was not in their nature to accept the dominion of others. No living Sith could abide accepting the will of another. Sith _must_ rule.

Yet how could one gain power over all living things if not by arcane power? A Sith _could_ rule, could make all sentient beings bow down. That didn't confer rule of every living thing; animals would still obey their instincts and plants would still grow where nature told them. And people would still have free will to do as they would when their actions did not fall under the aegis of Sith government. If one was to control all things, only power, Force power, could do it. Yet...

Gedric shook his head. No one being could wield that much power in the Force, and there wasn't a Force nexus in the galaxy so strong that it would impart such power. So how - ah. One Sith couldn't do it alone. If, say, Gedric were to do it, he would have to gain the help of other Sith. But...how could he trust other Sith to play their part? Sith always hungered for greater power, and not one of them would allow a single Sith to effectively rule the universe. The only way to do it would be to...

Would be to hide the truth from them.

Yes. Political rule of the galaxy was, at best, a first step. The way to true power was to bring everyone to believe in the Sith cause so profoundly that they dedicated their lives to it. Once all Force-users followed the way of the Sith, a sufficiently skilled manipulator could move his subjects into positions that would allow them to exercise power on a scale never seen before. _That _was how you gained power over the Force itself.

Gedric stood. "I am ready."

_Good, Lord Cahan. Always be sure in your decisions, if you can._

Gedric looked down at the holocron in his hand. "Did you always dispense such pearls of wisdom when you taught Palpatine?"

_Don't mock, Lord Cahan. Remember that you come to me as a member of a long forgotten Sith sect. I see in you mastery of dark side power, and I see some hint of your thoughts, but I know little of the education you received, of the history of your branch of the Sith, or of the evolution that your Sith doctrine has undergone since you were marooned on Kesh. You are a mystery, Lord Cahan, one I will gladly unravel._

"You should be wary of speaking of me as an object, Plagueis," said Gedric. "I'm not one to tolerate such insults."

_Of course, High Lord. I meant no such insult. Will you leave now?_

Gedric nodded.

_I advise that you hide my holocron._

"Of course." No need to let the rabble know what he had found. Gedric placed the holocron in a pouch that hung on his waist, and then, with a flick of his will and a muttered word, Sith magic forced the door open. The two Sabers standing outside the door straightened to attention, and Gedric let his senses steal over them, trying to learn what they had thought. They were Sith, though, and had guarded themselves against all intruders. Yet about them Gedric sensed an air of unease, and he said, "Don't worry. Something quite wonderful has happened." He stepped between them and passed them by. He felt them genuflect.

"As you say, High Lord," the two Keshiri said together.

Gedric nodded, but the Force told him that they exchanged glances, and he could practically feel their curiosity straining to get out. He would have smiled, but he understood that they would talk, would spread the word of Gedric's strange trip and his behavior during it. Well, some things you just can't help.

"Come," he said, and he sped away, the Force speeding him, the two Sabers following behind.

#

In the solitude of his holocron, the spirit of Plagueis would have smiled if he'd had a body. It was so easy to manipulate some Sith. All you had to do was play to their expectations. His plan was working perfectly.

* * *

_Jade Shadow_ shuddered with each strike of a long distance laser bolt. The TIEs were still far away, within range of the _Shadow_ but not close enough for their shots to inflict much damage. Each shot drained the shields a little bit, though, and the TIEs were faster than the _Shadow_; they would catch up soon enough. It had become a race: could _Jade Shadow _get out of range of the Interdictor before the TIEs caught up with it? The Interdictor was moving too, though as a capital ship, it was like trying to accelerate a boulder by hand.

Luke flew the ship with the throttle glides pushed to their max. He didn't bother maneuvering: any attempt would make the _Shadow _lose speed, and that would end up killing them. The shuddering increased: the TIEs were getting closer. His display showed an image of the race. The boundary line of the Interdictor's gravity well, the path of the _Shadow_, the ever-encroaching TIEs; all were there. It did seem that they would get out of the gravity well in time, but only if— "Ben," he said, "shift power from the forward shields aft."

"Shifting power," said Ben. There was a hum in the ship, and the shuddering decreased as the shields strengthened. Luke watched the display, calculating velocities and times. _We'll get there_, he thought. There was nothing to do but wait as the shuddering slowly grew louder and more pronounced. Luke called up a report on the shields. The numbers kept ticking down as the gap between the _Shadow_ and the TIEs shrank.

They were almost out of the interdiction field when the shields finally fell. The ship shook as cannon strikes began eating into the _Shadow_'s armor. _Ten more seconds_, thought Luke, and he dropped a concussion missile out of port missile tube. He fixed it in the Force, setting his will and power upon it so that no Sith might move it. Then there was an almighty _bang_ as something hit the ship. Luke ignored it, squeezing the missile with the Force as the TIEs came upon the missile. The light of the detonation took a few seconds to reach the ship, so close to the speed of light were they.

"Tahiri!" said Luke. "Course?"

"Got it," she said. "Sending it to you."

Luke pulled it up, and in seconds, they were out of the interdiction field. Luke made the course correction, and then they jumped into hyperspace.

* * *

Areth Semai sleeps now. Her sleep is the sleep of a worker exhausted by the day: deep and dreamless. When she wakes, it will be as though she has just closed her eyes. Now, though, in the darkness of her tiny apartment, she waits, neither dead nor dreaming, for something, something she knows has a name. There is a word to describe this thing. The word is _Jedi_.

She dreams. No, not in sleep. She dreams in her waking life; it gets her through the day. In the Corporate Sector, daydreams are all you have. If you dream at night...well, the dream could become a nightmare. For now, let her sleep a restful sleep, the sleep of those who have no fear, of those who want for nothing. She will never get another time for it.

The darkness wreathes her, holding her in its embrace, and ever so softly, a voice comes out of the shadows to whisper in her mind, _Peace_.

The shadow lays the hand of its power on her, sensing in her a power akin to its own. Yes...this one will do.

For Areth Semai, like a little boy who once lived on a desert planet, is strong in the Force. Unlike that little boy, no Jedi will come to save her. She will not be the Chosen One of destiny. Her fate, her _doom_, lies down a path that she has never envisioned, not even in her nightmares. The shadow, you see, has found her, and found _in _her a will malleable to its whispered words. The shadow will take hold of her, will use her in its plans, and she will be Areth Semai no more. She will have a new face, and a new name.

That name will be _Abeloth_.

* * *

Anakin sat in a glade, thinking.

In life, he had not been one to think too long on things; Jacen had been the thinker, the one who questioned the universe and his place in it. To Anakin, the galaxy seemed simple: you did good, or you did evil. There was no middle ground. He knew this, knew it in the depths of his soul. Ha! The depths of his soul. That was all he was, now: soul and spirit. What was the difference between the two, anyway? Was one the essence of personhood, and the other, the remnant that became part of the Force? If so, what of the body? What were the workings of the soul and spirit? If the Force was all, why did the material world exist separate from the Force? Wasn't the Force sufficient?

Why? _Why?_ Why did the Force exist, why did the universe exist? Did the Force exist _a priori _to the universe, or was it the result of sapient life? If the latter, what was so special about sapience that it should create some magical power?

_Some questions have no answers_. Ikrit had told him that when they both were alive. Anakin had been so young then; it had been before the Yuuzhan Vong had made him grow up. Anakin had thought that unfair. He had wanted to know why there weren't answers to everything.

_I don't know_, Ikrit had said. _Sometimes, though, considering the question is more important than knowing the answer._

Anakin hadn't understood.

_Can you not guess? _Ikrit had shifted his weight, then had sat on the cold stone of the praxeum's floor. _In searching for an answer, you will learn more about yourself than you could otherwise guess_.

_You were right, Ikrit_, thought Anakin. The hardest thing to learn about yourself was that you were wrong, that your worldview was wrong, and that you had been so simplistic, so idealistic that you believed such naïve things.

Could he do it? Could he truly defeat Abeloth? No, Sekot had said he would be _a_ key to defeating her, not _the _key. What, then? Accept darkness to defeat the dark? That was his choice, really. After an essence transfer, a Force-user could only wield the dark side. For people like Palpatine, that hadn't mattered. They were so steeped in darkness that it wouldn't matter to them whether they couldn't use the light. Anakin didn't want to think about that, didn't want to think that he would never again be able to touch the light. Darkness...why? Why was darkness the only choice? Why, why, _why_? Sekot was supposed to be an awesomely powerful being, a Power in the galaxy. Why couldn't it do something else? And why was it Anakin who had the special destiny? Fate and the Force had conspired, had stamped on the Skywalker family their brand, saying, "These are our chosen tools. Let their lives be full of chaos and misery." Luke had been right when he named Jaina the Sword of the Jedi, but he hadn't realized that he was talking about everyone with Skywalker blood. _Never shall you know peace, though you shall be blessed for the peace that you bring to others._ That was the Skywalker clan, perfectly described.

Anakin sighed. Even in death, he could not know peace. He stood. "Sekot," he said. "Ikrit. I've made my decision."

They came, passing through fronds of plants and blades of grass until they stood beside Anakin. "Yes?" said Sekot.

Anakin took a deep breath, let it out. "I'll do it. I accept your offer."

Ikrit closed his eyes. "So be it," he said.

* * *

They do not feel it, not in the halls of the Fountain Palace, nor in the airways of Nar Shaddaa; not in the bowels of Coruscant or in the far distant dimension of hyperspace, but this fact remains true:

The universe has changed. It will never be the same again.

* * *

Author's Note: So ends Chapter 5. I hope you all enjoyed it, and if you thought Luke, Ben, and Tahiri's part was too small... Well, it would have been a _much_ longer chapter if I'd added in everything.

From this point, I may have to begin making chapters that only cover certain plot threads. That would make update times faster, but it would also mean it might take longer to get to the portion of the story you like the most. If you have an opinion on which way you want this to go (i.e., do you want the big chapters with all storylines and long update times, or do you want smaller chapters following fewer storylines with shorter update times?), either tell me in a review or PM me.


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